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AN EXCITING CHASE 




THE 


ADVENTURES OF TAD 


BY 

FRANK H. CONVERSE 

i * 

AUTHOR OF “PEPPER ADAMS,” “BLOWN OUT TO SEA,” 
“DARCY,” “PAUL GRAFTON,” ETC. 


) 



BOSTON 

D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

Franklin and Hawley Streets 



Copyright , 188b, by 
D. Lothrop and Company. 



Electrotypes by 
C. J. Peters & Son, Boston. 


THE ADVENTURES OF TAD. 


CHAPTER I. 

It was near the close of a blustering 
March day, and the seats about the big 
cylinder stove in the waiting-room of the 
Broad Street Station in the city of Phila- 
delphia were in great demand. 

One of them was occupied by Tad 
Thorne, who, though he had no business 
there, was enjoying the warmth as only 
a small fourteen-year-old boy can do, 
after being all day in the city streets 
crying parlor matches at three cents per 
box — “ two for five.” 

Tad’s enjoyment was tempered by a 


3 


4 The Adventures of Tad . 

little mental worry as a matter of course. 
Nobody- is entirely happy in this world, 
and as he warmed himself Tad was 
obliged to keep a watchful eye on the 
door of the porter’s room opposite. It 
was the duty of that colored functionary 
to assist tramps and vagrant boys from 
the waiting-room, with scant ceremony. 
“Last night he said he’d bounce me if 
he caught me here again,” mused Tad, 
advancing first one patched shoe and 
then the other toward the stove, “ but I 
shouldn’t think the corporation would 
grudge what little fire it takes to warm 
meT 

For a time Tad remained in undis- 
turbed comfort. So many persons were 
constantly coming and going that no 
one took particular notice of the thinly 
dressed, pale-faced lad who occasionally 


The Adventures of Tad . 5 

stretched his fingers caressingly towards 
the glowing coals. 

“ It’s the first time I’ve been warm 
clear through since last August — I wish’t 
I could hold heat like a hot brick does,” 
Tad soliloquized as with an involuntary 
shiver he thought of having to start out 
in the chilly night air again. 

"Is there no other place where you 
can go and warm yourself, besides a 
waiting-room only intended for the-er 
— patrons of the railroad,” asked a tall, 
aristocratic looking gentleman, with iron- 
gray hair, and a very dignified manner, 
who occupied the next seat to the one 
in which Tad was sitting. He spoke 
severely and frowned at Tad, as though 
the boy’s presence annoyed him. 

If his address had been more kindly, 
Tad’s reply would have been more re- 


6 The Adventures of Tad . 

spectful. As it was, Tad scowled a 
little. 

“ There’s places enough, I s’pose — 
only they don’t happen to ’low boys who 
hasn’t any business there, round. Spec- 
ially if they ain’t dressed any better ’n I 
am,” he answered, sullenly, glancing in- 
voluntarily down at himself as he spoke. 
The tall man muttered something about 
“ confounded nuisance,” but made no 
further reply. And as he rose, giving 
a nervous glance at the clock, Tad 
noticed that he wore a long gray ulster, 
over a very nice suit of clothes, while 
at one side of the seat he had vacated 
lay his travelling rug in a shawl-strap, 
and a small alligator-skin satchel with 
nickel-plate mountings. 

Tad was wondering within himself 
whether he ever knew what it was to be 


The Adventures of Tad . 7 

homeless, cold, and hungry, when he 
was a boy, when his meditations were 
disturbed by the violent ringing of a hand- 
bell, accompanied by the hoarse voice of 
one of the railroad officials calling out 
something, of which the words “ express,” 
and “ passengers,” were alone intelligible 
to Tad’s ear. This was followed by the 
usual frantic rush toward the great swing 
doors leading into the depot. The tall 
gentleman sprang nervously to his feet, 
and, snatching up his travelling rug, shot 
through the doorway as though he had 
but five seconds in which to board a 
train that did not start for ten minutes, 
schedule time. “ Hi there ! ” cried Tad 
after him, “ you’ve left your little satchel ! ” 
but the gentleman was beyond call. So, 
seizing the hand-bag from the next seat, 
Tad elbowed his way through the throng, 


8 The Adventures of Tad . 

into the depot, in hot pursuit of him of 
the flowing ulster. 

Just inside the swing doors stood a po- 
liceman of imposing presence. He was a 
large fat man but extremely zealous, and 
his professional instincts were at once 
roused at the sight of a shabbily dressed 
boy dodging in and out of a crowd, with 
a nickel-plated alligator-skin satchel in 
his hand. Stepping hastily forward he 
laid a heavy hand on Tad’s shoulder. 

Now, after the manner of his kind, 
Tad regarded all policemen as natural 
foes to be feared — and, as far as possible, 
avoided. So, no sooner did he recognize 
the dreaded touch than, slipping eel- 
like from his would-be captor’s grasp, 
Tad, with an inarticulate cry of terror, 
dove directly under the wheels of the 
nearest train. 


The Adventures of Tad . 9 

The cars were at a stand-still of course, 
but had they been in motion, I am not 
so sure but Tad would have acted 
exactly the same, so great was his fear 
of arrest True, in theory, conscious 
innocence is generally supposed to show 
a bold front ; but unfortunately this is 
not always the case in practice, partic- 
ularly in an issue between a big police- 
man and a small boy. 

Tad emerged on the opposite side of 
the track, with the encouraging cry of 
u Stop, thief,” ringing in his ears, just in 
time to confront the blue-coated official 
who, in some inexplicable way, had 
reached the spot as quickly as himself. 

“ There he is ! ” shouted a young man, 
whom Tad had noticed in the waiting- 
room a little before, and, hesitating for 
a brief second, the hunted lad, who still 


io The Adventures of Tad . 

clung to the cause of his trouble, sprang 
upon the platform of a parlor-car attached 
to the waiting train. Flinging open the 
door, he darted in, meaning, if possible, 
to pass through to the other end, where, 
slipping off, he hoped to be able to lose 
himself in the crowd. 

Vain hope! As he hurried between 
the rows of as yet unoccupied chairs, 
the rattle of the conductor’s key was 
heard in the rear door at which he was 
hoping to escape; while the shuffle of 
feet, and sound of voices, at the door 
which he had entered, told Tad that he 
was fairly trapped. 

Glancing despairingly about him, Tad’s 
quick eye discovered at least a tem- 
porary hiding-place. Dropping on his 
knees, he crawled behind the nearest of 
the revolving chairs which, fortunately 


The Adventures of Tad . 1 1 

for him, was the one next the door of 
entrance. Concealed by its arching back, 
Tad made himself as small as possible in 
the angle formed by the end of the com- 
partment and side of the car, where he 
awaited the result in fear and trembling. 

He heard the sound of masculine feet, 
and the rustle of silken skirts, blended 
with a subdued murmur of voices as the 
parlor-car began to fill up. A rather 
stout lady, richly dressed, paused beside 
the chair behind which Tad was hidden. 

“ It is so warm here, John, I shall not 
need to keep on my circular,” she said, 
in a somewhat languid tone. Tad could 
not distinctly see the person thus ad- 
dressed, but by the way he threw himself 
into the next chair and immediately un- 
folded a newspaper, from behind which 
he vouchsafed a brief grunt in reply, 


12 The Adventures of Tad . 

Tad imagined him to be the lady’s hus- 
band. 

Suspending her heavy fur-lined cloak 
from a hook at the compartment end, the 
lady patted and pulled its long folds into 
place behind the chair-back, and for a 
moment Tad’s heart almost stopped 
beating, as her gloved fingers once or 
twice actually grazed his hair. 

But he remained undiscovered, and, 
better still, the sheltering garment helped 
to hide him more effectually than before, 
and, as its owner seated herself with a 
little sigh of relief, Tad chuckled glee- 
fully as he heard the receding tread of 
the big policeman, who, after casting a 
comprehensive glance about the car, was 
obliged to beat a hasty retreat, because — 

The cars were in motion ! In his 
excitement the possibility of such a con- 


The Adventures of Tad . 13 

tingency had entirely escaped Tad’s 
mind. He was almost on the point of 
scrambling to his feet and calling out to 
the conductor to stop the train, but, 
remembering the unpleasant results 
which would probably follow such a 
procedure, Tad sank helplessly back into 
his niche. He felt as though the chances 
were that the conductor would not be- 
lieve his story, and he would probably be 
given into custody — bag and baggage — 
at the next station. So of two evils, he 
chose the one which seemed the least, 
comforting himself with the assurance 
that the train would probably arrive at its 
destination very soon, when he could slip 
off unobserved. The voice of Tad’s lady 
— as he mentally termed her — disturbed 
his perplexed reverie. 

“ What time do we get in, John, 


14 The Adventures of Tad . 

dear ? ” she asked, as she settled her feet 
on the comfortable hassock. 

From behind his paper “John, dear,” 
was understood to mutter that, provided 
the train didn’t run off the track or over 
an embankment, they were due about 
eight A. M. on the following morning in 
the city of Boston ! 

“ Boston , oh gimminy crickets ! I have 
been and gone and done it now ! ’’gasped 
poor Tad, who in moments of excitement 
was apt to use language which at other 
times he rather prided himself on avoid- 
ing, because his mother used to dislike it 
so. Tad had a vague impression that 
Boston was a sort of large country-town 
in a far-off region known as “down east.” 
Further than this he knew not, except 
that it was sometimes called the “ Hub,” 
and seemed to be a sort of headquarters 


The Adventures of Tad. 15 

for culture — whatever that was — and 
baked beans. At least, so he had read in 
the city papers. 

But, in his small way, Tad was some- 
thing of a philosopher. He had not yet 
learned that through seeming misfortunes 
the great Fatherhood leads His children 
in just the way that proves best in the end 
— this knowledge was to come. All he 
could do was to keep from useless fret- 
ting, and accept the situation as coolly as 
possible. Therefore, settling himself as 
comfortably as he could, Tad gave him- 
self up to hard thinking, and, quite nat- 
urally, his mind went backward as well 
as forward. 

Tad’s father had been a soldier in the 
regular army; and when, a few months 
before, the news had arrived that he was 
killed in a skirmish with the Indians on 


1 6 The Adventures of Tad, 

the frontier, his mother, never very 
strong, had seemed to receive her own 
death-blow. She grew paler and thinner, 
till at length she had to give up work, 
from lack of strength to run her sewing- 
machine, which helped to earn their daily 
bread. And finally, when the end came, 
the sale of the sewing-machine itself, to- 
gether with their scanty stock of furniture, 
barely sufficed to pay the poor woman’s 
burial expenses. It is a common story 
enough. Hundreds of broken-hearted, 
over-worked, half-starved women all over 
the land have lived and died after the 
same fashion, and will till the millennium 
comes. Yet this fact does not comfort 
the orphans they leave behind them. 
Certainly, it was no comfort to Tad, who 
was nearly wild with grief at the loss of 
the one being whom he had to love in the 


The Adventures of Tad . 17 

wide world. Only for things that his 
mother said to him before she fell asleep, I 
fear Tad would have drifted into the ways 
of too many of our city boys who, like 
him, are left homeless and friendless amid 
temptation and sin. But the boy had 
good stuff in him, and, best of all, he 
held his mother’s memory and parting 
words as something too sacred to be 
forgotten. I do not claim that he was 
one of those immaculate street boys 
common enough in fiction, but alas, so 
rare in fact. By no means. Truth com- 
pels me to state that Tad Thorne at the 
age of fourteen was rather rude in speech, 
quick-tempered, and the owner of a 
decidedly obstinate disposition, which, 
however, was readily affected by kindly 
words. Yet, do you wonder at his 
faults ? The only wonder to myself is 


1 8 The Adventures of Tad . 

that Tad did not become a really bad 
boy ; for since his mother’s death he had, 
as one may say, almost lived in the 
streets. For Tad had no home. A 
friendly newsvender gave him lodgings 
under his periodical counter in the city 
post-office, in return for which Tad sold 
papers or ran errands. And in odd 
moments he had managed to keep soul 
and body together by blacking boots, 
peddling matches, carrying valises, hold- 
ing horses, and a score of other devices 
known to the average street boy. 

I have mentioned Tad’s faults; now let 
me tell you some of his better qualities. 
He was honest, clean-mouthed, and, gen- 
erally speaking, truthful, as well as kind- 
hearted and generous to an extravagant 
degree. He had attended the night 
schools, — attracted at first by their 


The Adventures of Tad . 19 

warmth and comfort, — where he had 
learned to read creditably, spell fairly, 
write legibly, and cipher understand- 
ing^. But with his superiority in many 
respects over the associates among whom 
his lot had of late been thrown, Tad, in 
thinking matters over, had to confess that, 
in a business point of view, he had been 
anything but a success. The truth is, 
Tad was not sharp or unscrupulous 
enough to compete with his fellows; but 
this fact he did not recognize. 

“ I guess I’m not one of the lucky 
ones,” he murmured, rather ruefully, as he 
mentally reviewed his many business fail- 
ures, while the swift train which was 
bearing him away from the scene of them 
all, to fresh fields and pastures new, went 
thundering on through the darkness to- 
ward Boston. 


20 The Adventures of Tad . 

Boston! As Tad’s thoughts reverted 
from the past, the name repeated itself 
over in his mind. “ Seems as though I 
heard mother say once that I had an 
Aunt Rhoda who lived in Boston, or Ban- 
gor, or — anyway, it was a place that be- 
gan with B, somewhere 4 down east,’ ” 
mused Tad. Not that he hoped, expected, 
or even desired to meet this, the only rel- 
ative he knew of in the world. It was 
enough to remember that she had never 
held communication with Mrs. Thorne 
since her marriage to some one whom 
her older sister Rhoda did not like. And 
a slight offered to his mother was in Tad’s 
eyes an unpardonable offence. 

But so much thinking, together with the 
warmth of the steam-heating pipes at his 
back and the even on-rushing movement 
of the train, began to make Tad drowsy. 


21 


The Adventures of Tad . 

Peeping out of his hiding-place, he could 
see that many of the passengers were dis- 
posing themselves for uneasy slumber, and, 
judging by certain sounds from the chair 
in front of him, Tad’s lady was already in 
dreamland. So, leaning his head back 
against the fur-lined cloak which had al- 
ready served him such a good turn, and, 
being used to sleeping in all sorts of pos- 
tures and places, Tad fell fast asleep in no 
time. Rousing himself at intervals long 
enough to silently change his cramped 
position, Tad passed the long night in 
comparative comfort, until with the dawn 
of morning all began to shake off their 
drowsiness, and to struggle into more 
comfortable positions, as they grumbled 
about not having slept a wink during the 
night. 

Tad’s lady was not exactly cross, but 


22 The Adventures of Tad . 

Tad noticed that she called her husband 
Mr. Mason, instead of “John, dear,” as 
on the evening before, when she asked 
him how he had rested. And he also no- 
ticed that Mr. Mason’s voice was rather 
sharp as he replied that the confounded 
chair had given him three distinct kinks 
in his backbone, and while economy was 
well enough in its place, by George! an- 
other time he’d have his own way, and 
take a section in a “ sleeper,” as sure as 
his name was John Mason ! 

So, my lady is “ Mrs. John Mason,” Tad 
thought to himself, trying in his imagina- 
tion to picture her face from the sound of 
her voice, and failing entirely. But with- 
out well knowing why, he resolved not to 
forget the name of the lady who — as he 
mentally expressed it — “belonged to the 
fur-lined cloak.” Other and less pleasant 


2 3 


The Adventures of Tad . 

thoughts began to obtrude themselves, as 
the morning wore on. Now that he was 
so near his destination, Tad’s growing anx- 
iety as to his future movements contrasted 
rather strongly with his philosophy of the 
previous evening. 

“ I’ll get something to eat, first of all,” 
finally decided Tad, resolving not to lay 
any plans till this important duty had been 
performed. He had a cash capital of ten 
cents, together with two boxes of matches 
as a balance of stock in trade, so that he 
felt sure of a breakfast, — not a luxurious 
one, it is true — but, like a stale bun, very 
filling, for the price. 

Besides, there was the satchel — he 
could readily raise something on it at the 
pawnbroker’s. “ But that don’t seem to 
be doing the square thing by the high- 
toned old party, after all,” mused Tad, 


24 


The Adventures of Tad . 


thoughtfully ; “for even if I don’t ever 
run across him again — which the needle- 
in-the-haystack business isn’t a circum- 
stance to the chances of doing — the bag 
isn’t mine, after all. I wonder what’s in- 
side,” he continued, curiously, as he lifted 
it to his lap — “ a box of paper collars, 
and a tooth-brush, or a lot of thousan’-dol- 
lar bonds? ” But his newly awakened cu- 
riosity remained ungratified. The satchel 
was securely locked, and its peculiarly 
shaped key was probably at that moment 
in the tall gentleman’s pocket, wherever 
the individual himself might be. 

“ Must be something valu’ble in there, 
else it wouldn’t fas’ned up so close ; 
and, if that’s so, the owner ’ll advertise it. 
Anyway, I’ll hang on to it till I find out,” 
was Tad’s final decision. He would no 
more have thought of forcing the lock to 


The Adventures of Tad . 25 

satisfy curiosity, than of breaking open a 
money-drawer. 

A general stir among the passengers, 
together with certain fragments of con- 
versation which reached Tad’s ear, warned 
him that the end of his journey was at 
hand. Mrs. John Mason was among those 
who began getting in readiness for depart- 
ure. As, detaching the cloak from the 
hook, she withdrew its rich folds from be- 
hind her chair, Tad lightly touched the 
soft fur of the lining by way of a mute 
farewell ; after doing which he began 
making his own preparations for leaving. 
That is, he buttoned his threadbare jacket 
tightly about him, ran his fingers through 
his mop of curly hair, and pulled a shabby 
cloth cap well over his forehead. Then, 
with a fast-beating heart, Tad awaited the 
finale. 


CHAPTER II. 

The end was not long in coming. As 
the city clocks announced the hour of 
eight A. m., the train slowly rumbled into 
the depot, at the foot of Summer Street, 
and came to a full stop with the customary 
jolt which bumps together the passengers 
who stand expectant in the aisle. 

Then followed the usual rush for the 
doors, during which Tad crept from his 
hiding-place unnoticed in the general 
confusion. Carrying the satchel in his 
hand, he boldly elbowed his way through 
the crowd and, with a great sigh of relief, 
found himself standing on the platform 
unquestioned. As he was on the point 


26 


The Adventures of Tad . 27 

of turning away, Tad suddenly observed 
a young man whom he remembered 
having seen at the Broad Street Station 
on the previous evening. A small bluish 
scar above his right eyebrow had first 
attracted Tad’s attention, while the .person 
in question was standing by the stove 
quite near his own seat. At the time, 
Tad had vaguely wondered whether the 
man might not have been a soldier, like his 
own father, and perhaps been wounded 
by a bullet in the same battle. 

“ Yes, sir” thought Tad, closely eying 
the stranger, who in turn was sharply 
scrutinizing those who were leaving the 
cars, as though watching for some fellow- 
passenger, “that’s the same identical chap, 
and, what’s more,” he added, with growing 
interest, “ I believe he’s the very fellow 
who hollered, 6 there he is ! ? when I 


28 The Adventures of Tad . 

popped out from under the cars. I re- 
member him by his gold-mounted teeth, 
too ! ” 

For this young man, who wore a sort 
of chronic smile, as though pleased with 
his own thoughts, made a frequent dis- 
play of some astistic dentist’s handiwork. 
But the current of Tad’s thoughts took a 
suddenly unexpected turn. 

“ Sure enough,” he muttered, audibly, 
in answer to an inward suggestion; “ it’s 
the likeliest thing in the world; why 
didn’t I think of it before ? ” 

Acting upon a hasty impulse, Tad 
approached the object of his conjecture, 
and touched his elbow. “ Say, mister,” 
he eagerly asked, as the young man 
started violently, “you hain’t seen noth- 
ing of a tall party in an ulster coat down 
to his heels, carrying a blanket done up 


The Adventures of Tad. 29 

in a shawl-strap, anywhere’s aboard this 
train, have you?” A curious look of 
interest — I had almost said exultation — 
flashed across the stranger’s face as his 
sharp gray eyes, which were set curiously 
near together, seemed to take in Tad, 
his shabby clothes, and the small satchel, 
at one comprehensive glance. 

“ What do you want to know that 
for ? ” was the response, given in a pleas- 
ant voice. 

“ So ’s to see whether you knowed or 
not,” guardedly answered Tad, who, for 
some reason not plain to himself, had 
already repented his impulsive question 
of the moment before. The stranger was 
well dressed and well appearing, but 
Tad’s contact with the “ seamy side ” 
of life had made him rather distrustful 
of men and their motives, and with his 


30 


The Adventures of Tad . 


answer he began to edge away from his 
new acquaintance. Yet, so far from 
seeming offended at Tad’s not over- 
polite reply, the young man smiled more 
agreeably than ever. 

“ See here, my good lad,” he said, 
genially, “ that little bag in your hand 
looks considerably like one that the party 
you were asking me about — who, by 
the way, is a particular friend of mine — 
left on the settee at the Broad Street 
Station, Philadelphia, in his hurry, to 
catch this very train that we have both 
returned to Boston in, and you,” patting 
Tad pleasantly on the shoulder, “ are the 
honest boy that I saw pick it up and run 
after the owner, to return it to him. But 
how happens it that you have not found 
Mr. Richards — my friend’s name — you 
must have come on with us, and so — ” 



















N 



















U 


m 



SEE HERE, MY GOOD LAD,” SAID MR. JONES. 




'I 











— 












































\ 

** 
















The Adventures of Tad. 31 

Here Mr. Jones stopped abruptly, and 
began starng very hard at the few remain- 
ing passengers who were running the 
gauntlet of a throng of penned-up hack- 
men, vociferating in different keys. 

“ Why, con — found it ! ” he exclaimed, 
“ here I’ve been standing talking, and let 
Richards march off up town with his head 
so full of business that he’s forgotten I’m 
anywhere in existence ! But it’s all right,” 
— he went on, thrusting his hand into an 
inside pocket as he spoke, — “ for when 
Richards telegraphed back from Jersey 
City to the Broad Street Station, he of- 
fered ten dollars for the return of the pa- 
pers. So, if I give you the money and 
take the bag, it ’ll be just the same, besides 
saving you a long walk up town, eh?” 

But Tad cheerfully replied that he 
didn’t mind the walk, particularly as he 


32 The Adventures of Tad, 

wanted to see what the town was like. 
“ Boston’s quite a little place, after all,” 
he patronizingly remarked, with a glance 
at the busy streets. 

Mr. Jones warmly commended Tad’s 
resolution, as well as the slight touch of 
caution which it implied. 

“ I see that you’ve cut your eye-teeth, 
my boy,” he said, with an approving smile, 
“ and it’s always well to be on one’s guard, 
while there is so much dishonesty in the 
world. On the whole,” continued Mr. 
Jones, after an instant’s reflection, “your 
plan is best, so suppose we have breakfast 
together at a restaurant first of all, and 
then I’ll take you up to the office where 
Richards is.” 

“All right,” returned Tad, briefly, with 
more particular reference to the certainties 
of something to eat, whatever other un- 


The Adve?itures of Tad . 33 

certainties might be in store for him. And 
secretly Tad felt quite able to take care 
of himself, even though everything was 
not all right — which he had no particu- 
larly well defined reasons for doubting. 

As they walked along together through 
the busy thoroughfares, Mr. Jones chatted 
agreeably of the men and things encoun- 
tered on the way. He hoped Tad would 
not get cold through the sudden change 
of climate, as the raw easterly wind swept 
sharply round the corners of the irregular 
streets, and he even offered to carry the 
satchel for him, so that Tad might keep 
his hands warm by putting them in his 
pockets. But Tad replied, Oh, no — he 
didn’t mind the wind; he guessed he could 
stand it as well as other fellows could that 
went round the u Hub.” 

Mr. Jones, with his perpetual smile, said 


34 The Adventures of Tad. 

something about “a capital pun,” and led 
the way into a large eating-house, where 
at the lunch-counter Tad speedily began 
discussing a breakfast which was propor- 
tioned to his appetite — thanks to Mr. 
Jones, who himself seemed to do ample 
justice to the coffee, cakes, beefsteak, and 
fried potatoes which he had ordered for 
both. But, hungry though he was, Tad 
did not forget to occasionally glance frorh 
the corner of his eye at the little satchel 
on the counter, near his plate. He had 
fully decided not to let it go out of his 
keeping for one moment, until it was re- 
turned to the proper owner. 

Curiously enough, Mr. Jones, who sat 
next him, occasionally glanced in the 
same direction from the corner of his eye. 
Though, after all, this was not so surpris- 
ing on the part of th<^ partner of Rich- 


The Adventures of Tad . 35 

ards, the absent-minded. He was probably 
thinking of the law-papers contained in 
the satchel. 

All at once, Tad, with his mouth full of 
buttered roll, looked up, uttered an excla- 
mation, and, slipping from his stool, hur- 
ried toward the door, through which Mr. 
Jones — who had thrown down his checks, 
together with a silver dollar, as he went 
by the cashier’s desk — was passing. His 
head was bent as if in deep thought, and 
in his hand was the alligator-skin satchel. 


CHAPTER III. 


Tad, who was stout-hearted and swift- 
footed, rather unexpectedly confronted 
Mr. Jones on the pavement in front of the 
restaurant, just as he was hailing a bus. 
“ I say !” cried Tad, excitedly; “ none of 
that, you know — give me back my 
satchel ! ” 

Mr. Jones started, stared very hard at 
Tad, as though he were trying to re- 
member where he had seen him before, 
and then looked at the satchel in his 
hand. “Well, I declare!” he exclaimed, 
in seeming surprise, “ I must have taken 
this up in a fit of abstraction and walked 
out, without thinking of you at all, my 
lad.” 

36 


The Adventures of Tad . 3 7 

Tad shrugged his shoulders. “ I want 
my satchel,” he said, stoutly, as a little 
knot of people began to gather. 

“ Tour satchel,” repeated Mr. Jones, 
with a shadowy sneer, “ come, now, 
that’s too — ” 

• “At your old games again, are you, 
Edwards ? ” interrupted a quietly author- 
itative voice. Its owner was a small, thin- 
faced man, in citizen’s dress, who, stepping 
forward as he spoke, gently touched Mr. 
Jones’ shoulder, to that gentleman’s vis- 
ible discomfiture. 

“ Is this yours, boy ? ” continued the 
speaker, addressing Tad and touching the 
satchel with the tip of a small whalebone 
cane. 

Tad nodded eagerly. Strictly speak- 
ing, it was not his, but, for obvious rea- 
sons, Tad forbore further explanations. 


38 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ Hand it over,” said the small man, 
briefly, to Mr. Jones, who complied, so 
promptly as greatly to astonish Tad, and 
then, obedient to a gesture from him of 
the cane, the fraudulent Jones vanished 
with considerable celerity round the 
nearest corner, while the small man 
walked quietly away. 

“ That’s City Detective Blossom — he’s 
been in our place lots of times,” Tad 
heard a telegraph messenger boy inform 
another, in awe-struck tones, and, after 
admiringly watching the small man out 
of sight, the two scampered off together. 

“ Strikes me that my friend Jones won’t 
get hold of this same little bag as easy as 
he thought for,” chuckled Tad, uncon- 
scious that the gentleman in question, 
with his hat pulled down over his fore- 
head like the villain in a pl£y, was watch- 


The Adventures of Tad. 39 

ing his movements from a. neighboring 
doorway. 

But whither should Tad turn his foot- 
steps? Up town or down town, or — 
stop a minute ! The satchel must con- 
tain something of more than ordinary 
value — a fact which the fraudulent Jones 
had in some way discovered, else why 
was he so anxious to get possession of 
it? 

“ Chaps like him don’t take the chances 
on a empty bag,” soliloquized Tad, with a 
wise shake of the head, “ and, accordin’ to 
my way of thinking, . somebody’ll be 
offering a reward for this bit of property 
before long.” 

Which reasoning resulted in Tad’s 
investing half his stock of ready cash in 
the purchase of three daily papers, in 
whose columns he hoped to find possible 


40 The Adventures of Tad . 

mention made of the lost satchel. The 
purchase itself decided the direction of 
his steps. He knew that along most city 
wharves were sheltered and sunny spots, 
where he could sit down and glance over 
his papers undisturbed by officious police- 
men. 

Having been duly directed by a sharp- 
voiced newsboy, Tad began making his 
way wharfward, through a narrow and 
not particularly inviting street, known as 
Lewis Lane. The theory of cause and 
effect was visible on every hand, in the 
shape of flourishing liquor-shops and mis- 
erable tenements. Shabbily dressed men 
lounged on every corner, filling the air 
with oaths and tobacco-smoke, while 
shrill-voiced women gossiped in the door- 
ways, and swarms of dirty children pad- 
died in the gutters. 


The Adventures of Tad . 41 

“ Come, now — you give us that 
purp ! ” said a threatening voice, and Tad 
looked suddenly round. A very ragged 
boy, whose hair was cut close to his bullet 
head, stood confronting a neatly dressed 
girl, rather younger than himself, who, 
from her appearance, was evidently a 
stranger in the neighborhood. 

“ Av ye don’t hand ’im over, we’ll 
take ’im away from yez in less’n two 
shakes,” chimed in a Hibernian voice, 
whose owner was a red-haired youth of 
fourteen summers, or thereabouts. In 
his dirty fingers was a string from which 
dangled an empty oyster-can — destined, 
as Tad at once saw — as an attachment 
to the tail of a small and decidedly dirty 
dog which the girl was hugging tightly 
against her white apron, very much to 
its detriment. 


42 The Adventures of Tad . 

The young and unprotected female 
compressed her lips, and, looking quite 
defiantly at her opponents, deigned no 
reply to their amiable intimations. But 
Tad thought that she also glanced at him 
rather anxiously, as though fearing he 
might array himself on the side of the 
foe. 

“ Sure, I w’udn’t be afeared of a gurrl, 
Bob,” scornfully insinuated the red-headed, 
in an undertone, and, thus stimulated, Bob 
took a step forward, but Tad was too 
quick for him. 

“ Look here ! ” exclaimed Tad, feeling 
his blood tingling clear to his finger-tips 
as he placed himself directly in front of 
Bob, the short-haired, — “you just leave 
that girl alone, will you! ” And, tucking 
his satchel under one arm, Tad threw 
himself into an attitude both offensive 


The Adventures of Tad . 43 

and defensive, which was calculated to 
strike terror to the heart of the enemy. 

“ Wasn’t a-’touchin’ of her — was I, 
Mickey Dolan ?” returned Bob, stepping 
back in evident alarm. “ I will, though, 
if she don’t give me my purp !” he added, 
with a threatening shake of the head, 
encouraged at the sight of his friend, 
who, after carefully turning back his tat- 
tered shirt-cuffs, was rapidly revolving 
a pair of red fists with a view of paralyz- 
ing the bold intruder by his own display 
of science. 

“ I don’t care,” undauntedly replied the 
small female, speaking for the first time, 
“It’s not your dog, and I won't give him 
up — there now ! ” And I regret to say 
that Miss Polly Flagg further emphasized 
her declaration by stamping a small foot 
on the pavement with considerable force. 


44 The Adventures of Tad . 

u Don’t worr}^ miss!” said Tad, reas- 
suringly. “ They won’t dare lay a 
finger on you — or the dog, either — while 
I’m here; and there’s a policeman just 
coming round the corner, too,” the latter 
information, intended for the ears of the 
two warlike youths, having an immediate 
effect. Mickey thrust his hands in his 
pockets, and walked away, whistling 
“ Mulligan Guards,” while Bob, with a 
parting scowl, quite equally divided be- 
tween the girl, the dog, and Tad himself, 
ran hastily across the street, and disap- 
peared up the nearest alley. 

“ Which way might you be going, 
miss?” asked Tad, with great politeness, 
as Miss Polly Flagg, looking extremely 
relieved, made preparations for departure, 
by cuddling the small dog securely in 
her arms. 


The Adventures of Tad . 45 

“ Down to Commercial Wharf, where 
our vessel lies,” was the unhesitating an- 
swer. “ My father is Captain Jethro 
Flagg, and I’m Polly Flagg,” continued 
Miss Polly, vaguely conscious that some 
sort of introduction was the proper thing, 
under all the circumstances. 

“My name is Tad — I mean Thaddeus 
— Thorne, and Pm from Philadelphia,” 
said Tad, wishing that his jacket was 
less threadbare and his shoes were whole, 
as he glanced at the simple but neat 
dress of his companion, whose face was 
completely overshadowed by a deep 
calico sun-bonnet shaped like the tilt 
of a market wagon. 

“ Oh ! ” returned Polly, and then, instead 
of speaking of the weather, or asking Tad 
how he liked Boston, Polly plunged head- 
long into a personal explanation : “ The 


4 6 The Adventures of Tad . 

cook wasn’t well, this morning,” she 
began, “ so I had to go to market, for 
father was up town. And while I was 
hurrying back through Lewis Lane, be- 
cause it was nearer, those horrid boys 
chased the poor little dog that had got 
lost, and he ran to me so pitiful,” said 
Polly, bending over the small animal in 
her arms until it was completely eclipsed 
by the sun-bonnet, “ that I caught him 
up, and said they shouldn’t have him. 
Then you came along, and — Pm ever 
so much obliged.” 

The abrupt wind-up, though a little 
incoherent, was perfectly satisfactory to 
Tad. 

• “ He’ll be a nice little dog after he’s 
washed,” Tad remarked, patting the pup 
to cover his embarrassment, for Tad 
wasn’t used to thanks, particularly from 


47 


The Adventures of Tad . 

girls. “I guess he’s a Newfoundland/’ 
he continued, with a knowing glance at 
the animal’s ears and paws, “and they’re 
first-class water-dogs, you know.” 

Polly nodded, and, after a short pause, 
looked curiously at the handsome travel- 
ling satchel in Tad’s hand. 

“You don’t belong to any of those 
vessels?” she asked inquiringly. For 
they had crossed busy Commercial Street, 
and were walking along the platform on 
the water-front, where the pedestrian 
looks down upon the bewildering maze 
of masts, spars, and cordage belonging 
to the coasting and fishing craft huddled 
in the basin between the two wharves. 

“No,” replied Tad, in a low voice. 
Fie could not tell her that he belonged 
to nothing — to no one, as he mentally 
expressed it. It would make him seem 


48 The Adventures of Tad . 

like a sort of vagrant, youthful tramp. 
Nor did he — to Polly’s secret disappoint- 
ment — account for his possession of the 
handsome little travelling satchel, with 
its silver mountings, at which Polly had 
cast admiring glances. 

“ I hope he came by it honestly,” 
thought Polly, and then was ashamed of 
the ungenerous self-suggestion. 

Yet I am afraid it lingered uncon- 
sciously in her mind, for she had in the 
flush of her gratitude decided she would 
ask Tad to take dinner with herself and 
Captain Flagg, on board the Alary J. 
But as they reached the end of Commer- 
cial Wharf, where the Alary J \ was 
moored, Polly hesitated a little. 

“You can come aboard, if you like,” 
she said; but Tad, who noticed her almost 
imperceptible change of manner without 


The Adventures of Tad . 49 

being able to account for it, shook his 
head. 

“Oh, no, miss; I don’t look fit,” he 
replied, with a glance at his shabby 
clothes and patched shoes, that was pa- 
thetic. “ I come down here,” he con- 
tinued, simply, “ because there wasn’t 
any other place where I could set down 
and look over the papers, — good morn- 
ing, miss,” and before Polly could reply, 
Tad was gone. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Just astern of the Mary J. a large iron 
steamer was discharging her cargo of 
cotton bales, a dozen or more of which 
were tiered up one upon another, at the 
verge of the wharf. 

Looking about him to make sure that 
he was unobserved, Tad scrambled up 
the back side of the tier, and, crawling 
nimbly over the top, dropped into a 
narrow niche between two of the bales, 
where, well sheltered from the wind, and 
warmed by the sun, he found that, with- 
out being seen, he could look directly 
down upon the Mary J?s deck. 

Polly Flagg had thrown aside her 


The Adventures of Tad . 51 

ugly head-gear, and, using the end of the 
half-house for a wash-bench, was vigor- 
ously scrubbing the small dog, who feebly 
protested, in a bucket of warm water 
furnished by the cook — a diminutive 
colored man with very round shoulders, 
and woolly locks plentifully powdered 
with gray. 

“ There, little dog,” said Polly, as she 
rubbed the whimpering pup with a bit of 
an old sail-cloth, “you were never so 
clean in your life before. Now, George 
Washington” — addressing the colored 
individual — “take him and lay him in 
the galley, by the fire, till he’s dry.” 

“ ’Pears though he orter be c’nsiderably 
refrigerated by his absolution, Miss Pol- 
ly,” returned Washington, with a convul- 
sive giggle, as, receiving the small bundle, 
he hurried back to the galley, which was 


52 The Adventures of Tad . 

a sort of large “ cubby-house,” midway 
between the two masts, where the cook- 
ing was done. 

Meanwhile, Polly unpinned her dress, 
which she had carefully turned up in front 
during the washing, pulled down her 
sleeves, and, without resuming the big 
sun-bonnet, walked to the rail, where she 
stood looking up the wharf in an expect- 
ant attitude. 

“ She isn’t exac’ly stylish-lookin’,” said 
Tad, viewing Miss Polly critically, from 
his point of observation, “ but she’s got a 
goodish kind of a face.” 

No — Polly was not stylish-looking. 
Her cheeks were as rosy and round as a 
Baldwin apple, and her small nose not 
innocent of freckles. Then, too, her 
mouth was rather large, though one forgot 
its size in the kindliness of her smile, 


The Adventures of Tad . 53 

which, moreover, showed a very perfect 
set of small, even, white teeth. Polly 
had a pair of pleasant dark eyes that, 
when she was a bit excited, looked almost 
black, and she was also the possessor of 
what the novelists call “ a wealth ” of 
bronze-tinted chestnut hair, with a natural 
crinkle in it, which no amount of art could 
have imitated. But Polly briefly summed 
up her own personal appearance in one 
terse sentence — “ red hair, freckles, and 
a snub-nose”; and no amount of reason- 
ing could convince her she was not unde- 
niably plain, or — as she unhesitatingly 
affirmed — “ awful homely.” 

“ I don’t believe it’s polite to stare at 
ladies, even if they can’t see you,” sud- 
denly thought Tad. And vaguely won- 
dering at his own newly awakened sense 
of propriety, Tad settled back in his cosey 


54 The Adventures of Tad . 

nook ; and, pulling out his three papers, be- 
gan running over the “ Lost ” columns, 
but his search was in vain. Watches had 
been lost, diamonds stolen, gold-headed 
canes taken by mistake, and pet poodles 
lured from their homes — for the recovery 
of each and all of which rewards were 
offered, with the suggestive “ no questions 
asked,” as an extra inducement for their 
return. But there was no reference in 
any of the papers to “ a small alligator- 
skin satchel, with nickel mountings, left 
by mistake in the waiting-room of the 
Broad Street depot,” or words to that 
effect; and Tad began to wonder what he 
had best do next. He could not advertise 
under the head of “ Found,” for five cents 
was all the money Tad had in the world; 
so, finally, he was forced to the conclusion 
that all he could do was — to use his own 


The Adventures of Tad . 55 

unspoken thought — “to hang on a spell 
longer.” 

It was much harder to decide what he 
should do with himself. The bag had 
some one to look out for it, but there was 
no one to look out for Tad. And, for the 
first time in his short life, Tad felt a feel- 
ing of something like homesickness creep 
over him. 

A familiar voice on the wharf, close to 
the pile of cotton bales, aroused Tad very 
suddenly from his reverie. 

“ It’s that Jones!” he excitedly ex- 
claimed, though under his breath, as he 
peered down at the speaker. It was in- 
deed that ingenious gentleman, as, lifting 
his hat with winning politeness, he had 
accosted Miss Polly, who was evidently 
impressed at such a display of courtesy. 

“ May I ask, miss,” said Jones, calling 


56 The Adventures of Tad . 

up his most agreeable smile, u whether 
you have seen a shabby-looking boy, car- 
rying a small alligator-skin satchel, any- 
where in this vicinity, within halt an 
hour ? ” 

“ Why, yes — he was down here a 
while ago, but I guess he’s gone up town 
agai'n,” replied Polly, wondering what the 
stranger wanted of the boy who called 
himself Tad Thorne. 

Mr. Jones looked sadly disappointed at 
Polly’s answer; while Tad, winking at 
himself, chuckled silently. What Mr. 
Jones might have said, is uncertain, for 
just then a third party hove in sight — to 
use a nautical phrase — who, Tad felt by 
a sort of instinct, must be Captain Jethro 
Flagg. He was a tremendously stout 
man, with iron-gray hair and a rim of 
white whiskers which made a sort of halo 


The Adventures of Tad . 57 

about his fat, weather-beaten face. The 

* 

blue shirt, pea-jacket, canvas trowsers, 
oil-skin hat, and heavy sea-boots which 
he wore left no doubt as to the nature of 
his calling. 

“ Now, then, Ephr’m,” said Captain 
Flagg, in a voice like a trumpet with a 
bad cold, as, turning about, he addressed 
a long-legged youth who brought up the 
rear with a heavy basket, “ heave ahead 
lively with them stores, my hearty, or you 
won’t fetch the schooner till dinner-time.” 
Thus admonished, Ephraim muttered 
something inaudible, and, reaching the 
edge of the wharf in a breathless condi- 
tion, set the basket down with a bang, 
while the captain greeted Miss Polly 
with a jovial wink. 

“ Hav’nt got to put back for nothing 
this time, Polly,” he triumphantly an- 


58 The Adventures of Tad . 

nounced, unmindful of the presence of 
Mr. Jones, whose abstracted gaze was 
seemingly directed at the little pennant 
which floated from the . schooner’s top- 
mast head. “ The stores is all in the 
basket, the new jib is coming down this 
afternoon, and I’ve got my freight money 
along of my clearance papers all right, 
in here,” holding up a flat, japanned tin 
case as he spoke. For, being very absent- 
minded, through constantly ruminating in 
his great responsibility as master of the 
coasting schooner Mary J., Captain 
Jethro Flagg usually forgot some part of 
his up-town errands, and was invariably 
sent back therefor by practical Polly, as a 
sort of atonement for his sins of omission. 

Polly nodded approvingly at her 
father’s assertion ; while Tad, as an un- 
observed but interested on-looker, noticed 


The Adventures of Tcid . 59 

that, at the mention of freight money, Mr. 
Jones’ eye fell from the topmast head to 
the japanned tin case in Captain Flagg’s 
hand, and briefly rested thereon. Sud- 
denly producing a note-book from his 
pocket, he began writing on a blank leaf, 
occasionally glancing thoughtfully at the 
Mary J., as though noting down a brief 
description of her build and rig, to the 
evident uneasinesss of Captain Flagg, 
who regarded Mr. Jones and his little 
book with ill concealed suspicion. 

“ Beg pardon, Captain,” said the latter, 
looking up with easy familiarity, as 
Ephraim and George Washington suc- 
ceeded by their united efforts in getting the 
stores safely on board, “ but I’m a Globe 
reporter. Anything extr’ord’nary or un- 
usual last voyage that would make us 
an item, eh ? ” 


60 The Adventures of Tad . 

He held his head a little one side as 
he spoke, and tapped his teeth with the 
end of his pencil in such a business-like 
manner that the Captain’s face cleared at 
once. 

“ Extraord’nary ! ” thoughtfully repeated 
Captain Flagg, leaning up against a 
cotton bale, and inviting his companion 
by a nod to do the same, “ well, lemme 
overhaul the log a bit, an’ see. Polly,” 
elevating his voice for the benefit of his 
daughter, who was regarding the repre- 
sentative of the press with admiring awe, 
“ what night was it we lost Sam over- 
board, whilst we was hove to off 
Thatcher’s Islan’ ? ” 

“A week ago last Thursday,” promptly 
returned Polly, with a shade of sadness 
in her tone. 

“Ah, indeed ! ” returned Mr. Jones, in- 


The Adventures of Tad . 6 1 

terestedly, as he jotted something down 
in the note-book, and continued to write 
as he talked. “ Heavy gale, I presume, 
and man fell from aloft, reefing the — a — 
main t’gallantsails ? ” 

' Regarding the speaker for a brief mo- 
ment in pitying silence, Captain Flagg 
proceeded to enlighten his ignorance. 
“Only square riggers carries t’gall’ns’ls,” 
he explained, and the Mary J., bein’ a 
fore-an’-after, has no need o’ sech. Sam,” 
solemnly continued the captain, laying his 
stumpy forefinger on Mr. Jones’ arm, to 
command his undivided attention, — “Sam 
was a black pig — the cunnin’est, know- 
in’est — why, what’s that?” he exclaimed, 
suddenly breaking off in his eulogium on 
the lost porker, as the sound of a sup- 
pressed giggle was heard to proceed from 
directly overhead. Turning his eyes up- 


6 2 The Adventures of Tad . 

ward as he thus spoke, and catching a 
glimpse of Tad’s mirthful face peering 
over the top of the cotton bales, Captain 
Flagg’s fingers insensibly relaxed their 
hold upon the japanned tin case contain- 
ing his papers and money. 

This was the moment for which Mr. 
Jones had been watching! Whipping the 
tin case from the captain’s unresisting 
grasp, he dodged round the pile of cotton 
bales before Captain Jethro could say 
“Jack Robinson,” or Polly recover her 
breath to scream. 

Now, despite his sudden, ill-timed 
mirth, Tad had been sharply watching the 
movements of the erratic Mr. Jones, 
whose purpose he had dimly suspected 
from the first moment of his pretended 
interview. And, as he snatched the case, 
Tad, scrambling from his hiding-place 


The Advent zires of Tad . 63 

with inconceivable rapidity, slid down on 
the back side of the cotton bales, just in 
time to confront the escaping Jones! 

Unlike the average boy-hero of fiction, 
Tad did not throw himself bodily upon 
the would-be robber, regardless of per- 
sonal safety, etc. But, instead, resorting 
to a device not unknown to playful youth 
in moments of extreme hilarity, he threw 
himself on all fours directly in front of 
the flying feet of the fraudulent felon! 

Uttering a wild whoop of dismay, Mr. 
Jones plunged with outstretched arms 
over Tad’s prostrate body, and struck the 
wharf with such startling suddenness that 
the tin case flew from his fingers and was 
immediately seized by Tad, who had 
scrambled to his feet in a twinkling, though 
only a second or two sooner than the ac- 
tive Jones himself, who, taking to his 


6\ The Adventui'es of Tad . 

heels with the speed poetically attributed 
to the startled fawn, was quickly lost to 
sight among the surrounding drays and 
express- wagons. 

Without his hat, and in a very bewil- 
dered frame of mind, Captain Jethro Flagg 
rolled heavily around the corner of the 
pile of cotton bales. Following him at 
suitable intervals came breathless Polly, 
astonished G. Washington Johnson, and 
the remainder of the Mary J.’s crew, in- 
cluding the chief mate — all compre- 
hended in the lengthy person of Ephraim 
K. Small, otherwise known as “ Eph.” 

Tad’s honest face shone with pleasura- 
ble excitement as he handed the tin box 
to Captain Flagg, and began brushing his 
dusty knees, while Polly Flagg smiled her 
approbation. 

“ My lad,” said Captain Flagg, placing 


The Adventures of Tad . 65 

his big hand on Tad’s shoulder, “ it’s nigh 
eight bells — come along and have some 
dinner. We’ll talk over matters aboard 
the vessel.” 

An invitation of this sort — particularly 
under all the circumstances — was not to 
be refused, and Tad, recovering the satchel 
from its hiding-place among the cotton 
bales, accompanied Captain Flagg on 
board of the Mary J., where mutual ex- 
planations followed, while George Wash- 
ington was bringing the dinner into the 
small cabin. 

In contributing his own share, Tad 
insensibly told the most of his simple 
story, after which Polly Flagg, with 
sparkling eyes, related her morning ad- 
venture and Tad’s connection therewith ; 
hearing which, Captain Jethro gravely 
shook hands with Tad across the table, 


66 The Adventures of Tad . 

without speaking. Indeed, he finished 
his dinner in like silence, and, after push- 
ing his chair back, sat staring so hard at 
the youth that Tad began to feel very 
hot and uncomfortable. 

“ My lad,” suddenly said the Captain, 
“ which way might you be cal’latin’ to 
steer? Is it ’bout ship, and put back 
to Philadelphy, or,” continued the speaker, 
rising to fanciful heights, “ is it dead be- 
fore the wind to whatever port promises 
the best freights and biggest profits?” 
With a dim comprehension of Captain 
Flagg’s meaning, Tad, conscious of a 
slight choking in his throat, replied sadly 
that he didn’t know — he had no mother, 
no friends, no home, and it didn’t matter 
much where he went or what became 
of him. Polly’s eyes shone sympathet- 
ically, and the Captain’s voice was quite 


The Adventures of Tad . 67 

husky when, a little later, he replied to 
Tad’s despondent answer. 

“ It mayn’t matter much to you, Tad,” 
he said, very tenderly and reverently, 
“but it matters c’nsider’ble to Him that’s 
watchin’ you from up aloft, for if He 
hadn’t some sort of sailin’ orders for you, 
He never ’d ’a’ sot you adrift on this here 
sea of life. Now, my lad,” Captain Flagg 
continued, impressively, “ only for your 
overhaulin’ and runnin’ down that pri- 
vateerin’ chap under false colors, I’d 
have lost the ship’s papers, and nigh 
forty dollars in clean cash, to say nothin’ 
of the good turn you did Polly here, this 
mornin’, which I ain’t like to forget. And, 
summin’ it all up,” said the Captain, 
patting blushing Tad on the shoulder, 
“I’ve made up my mind to give you — ” 

“No, sir” interrupted Tad, with a 


68 The Adventures of Tad . 

decisive shake of the head, “ I didn’t 
want anything for what I’ve done.” 

“To give you — a chance aboard the 
Mary J., — ‘to be-e-e a galliant sail-yer 
bo-o-o-o-y.’ ” Trolling out the concluding 
words, which were a reminiscence of 
some old sea-song, in a deep voice, that 
might have come from his cavernous 
boots, the Captain leaned back in his 
chair, and beamed benevolently upon 
Tad, who did not seem quite as much 
overcome by the magnitude of the offer 
as one might at first suppose. 

“ I’m ever so much obliged, Capt’n 
Flagg,” faltered Tad, conscious that Polly 
was waiting for his answer, with a look 
of pleased expectancy in her bright face, 
“ but I’m afraid — ” 

“ That you’ll be sea-sick ? Oh, that’s 
nothing — you’ll get right over it,” broke 


The Adventures of Tad . 69 

in Polly, with impetuous assurance. And 
so well assured did both father and daugh- 
ter seem to feel that Tad would jump at 
the proffered honor, that Tad’s half- 
uttered refusal died away on his lips. 

“All right, sir, I’ll do my best,” said 
Tad, sturdily, and, slapping him jovially 
on the back, Captain Flagg declared that 
nobody could do more than that. 

“ I began to the very sheerpole my- 
self,” explained the Captain, in the fulness 
of his heart, “ and, when I was your size, 
was raftin’ logs to a mill; then I pulled 
bow-oar in a gund’low, and after I’d gone 
two or three trips to the Banks, I shipped 
as fo’mast hand in a coastin’ vessel. I 
was a good many years workin’ myself 
from the fo’c’sle to the quarter-deck,” 
said Captain Flagg, with a solemn shake 
of his head, “ but I done it, and now I’m 


70 The Adventures of Tad . 

c’mmander and owner of a quarter ot the 
Mary /” 

If good Captain Flagg had been master 
of a two-thousand-ton A-i full-rigged 
clipper, he could not have spoken with 
more conscious pride than in this simple 
narration, and after regarding him with 
admiring awe, as one to whom the won- 
ders and mysteries of the sea were an 
open book, Tad glanced curiously around 
the cabin. 

It was a quaint little interior, with a 
curtained berth on either side, and a 
state-room, rather larger than a good- 
sized dry-goods box, at the back of the 
steps leading down from the deck, which 
was occupied for the present by Miss 
Polly Flagg, who was making her vaca- 
tion voyage with her father, as a reward 
of merit for improvement in her studies 


The Adventures of Tad . 71 

at the Bixport town school. The main- 
mast, which ran up through the cabin 
floor and roof about midway, had nails 
driven in it on which were hung the 
Captain’s oil clothes and Polly’s big sun- 
bonnet. A sort of folding table, attached 
to the after part of the mast by a hinge, 
could be turned up out of the way when 
not in use. A dingy-faced clock, like a 
big letter O, looked down from the wall, 
while opposite was a highly colored 
lithograph representing the once famous 
clipper Dreadnought ploughing through 
very green seas under a very blue sky. 
There was no carpet on the floor, which, 
however, was scrupulously clean; while 
three chairs, in various stages of dilapida- 
tion, composed the entire stock of 
furniture; but to Tad it was one of the 
most delightful places imaginable, and he 


72 The Adventures of Tad . 

longed for bed-time to come, so that he 
could stow himself away in the little berth 
which had been assigned him by Captain 
Flagg. 

“ All han’s on deck ! ” gravely an- 
nounced the Captain, as the city clocks 
struck one. 

Ephraim, who had been stretched at 
length on one of the lockers, gathered 
himself up, and, motioning Tad to follow, 
climbed leisurely up the companion- 
way. 

“ We’re goin’ to get under way this 
afternoon,” said Eph, “ and there’s a 
tremendous lot of things to do, — let’s 
see — what’ll we take holt of first ? ” 

Eph looked listlessly about him, and 
then, thrusting his hands in his pockets, 
leaned against the rail in a meditative 
attitude. Captain Flagg came forward 


The Adventures of Tad . 73 

and squinted aloft at the little masthead 
pennant, after which he followed the 
example of Eph. Polly, recovering the 
small dog from the galley, where George 
Washington was singing a Methodist 
hymn as he washed the dinner-dishes, sat 
down with it in her arms, on a coil of 
rope. And Tad, looking silently on, 
began to think that the hardships of a 
sailor’s life had been greatly overrated. 

By and by Captain Flagg remarked 
that he guessed the tide was about right, 
and they’d better think of getting under 
way. Certain lines were let go and 
hauled on board, and in some mysterious 
manner, quite incomprehensible to Tad, 
the Mary J. was slowly extricated from 
the maze of surrounding vessels, the sails 
hoisted by the united force of the ship’s 
company, exclusive of Miss Polly, and 


74 The Adventures of Tad . 

with a favoring wind the venerable forty- 
ton schooner began her voyage. 

“ Bring up the spy-glass, Polly,” said 
Captain Flagg, who sat comfortably on 
the head of the rudder, his hard hands 
grasping the spokes of the wheel. 

“ What is it, sir ? ” asked Polly, as, 
having brought the instrument in question 
from below, her father, placing it at 
his eye, gazed back at the end of the 
wharf from which the Mary J. had 
cleared. 

“I thought I saw some one I knowed; 
that’s all, Polly,” was the reply. He kept 
the fact to himself, however, that the per- 
son in question was none other than the 
ubiquitous Jones, who, observant of the 
captain’s telescopic gaze, placed the tip 
of his thumb at the end of his nose, and 
twiddled his fingers derisively. 


The Adventures of Tad . 75 

“ He’s bound to keep track of that ’ere 
little han’ bag,” said Captain Flagg to 
himself, with a dubious shake of the 
head. For Captain Flagg had become 
convinced, after hearing Tad’s story, that 
Mr. Jones, who was evidently a sharper 
of the first water, had ascertained in some 
way best known to himself, that the 
satchel contained something of consid- 
erable value, or he never would have 
“ shadowed ” its possessor so persis- 
tently. “ I’ll advertise it for the boy 
soon’s ever we get home,” he mentally 
decided, and then gave his undivided 
attention to the responsibility consequent 
upon his command. 

“ Mr. Small,” said Captain Flagg, 
gravely, “ have the decks cleared up, an’ 
then let the port watch go below.” 

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the long- 


7 6 The Adventures of Tad . 

legged, sandy-haired youth, who, in his 
dual capacity of officer and crew, was 
“ Mr. Small,” or “ Eph,” according to cir- 
cumstances. That is, as chief mate he 
was addressed with the prefix of “Mr.”; 
as a member of the port watch, which 
now consisted of himself and Tad, he re- 
ceived his more familiar title of “ Eph.” 

“ Come for’ard along of me,” said Mr. 
Small, ungrammatically and brusquely, 
motioning to Tad, who was staring at the 
passing tugs and vessels in open-eyed 
amazement, and the latter meekly obeyed. 
“ Them’s the jib halyards,” said Mr. Small, 
reclining in an easy posture against the 
foremast, with one hand in his trousers 
pocket, while with the other he pointed to 
the rope in question, “ an’ you coil ’em 
up on that air pin, same as the others is.” 

Tad having accomplished the task sat- 


The Adventures of Tad . 77 

isfactorily, Mr. Small proceeded to point 
out in their several positions the jib down- 
haul, the fore and main halyards, and peak 
halyards, and the fore and main sheets, 
with some instructions as to their several 
uses, showing Tad how to coil them up 
properly, so that they would be clear for 
letting go if needful. 

“ There — them’s all the ropes,” said 
Mr. Small, with an air of relief. “ Now, 
all you’ve got to do is learn how to 
steer, an’ tie a reef p’int, an’ you’ll be as 
good a sailor as anybody.” 

So saying, Mr. Small pulled a jack-knife 
and a piece of shingle from his pocket, 
and, sitting down on the fore hatch, began 
whittling, while Tad, greatly surprised and 
considerably relieved to find that the 
whole art of seamanship was so easily 
learned, drifted to the rail, where he stood 


78 The Adventures of Tad . 

gazing delightedly at the panorama spread 
out before him. Great ships, pulled by 
little panting tug-boats, — with sides rusty 
from a long sea-voyage, — came slowly up 
the harbor ; while others, with loosened 
sails, began their outw^ard-bound voyage, 
with the chanting song of the sailors as 
an accompaniment to the clanking cap- 
stan. Enormous iron steamers, handsome 
brigs, and three-masted schooners as large 
as the ships themselves, passed and re- 
passed, in bewildering succession. 

“ I think it’s real nice to be a sailor,” 
said Tad, enthusiastically, to Polly, who 
was walking the deck, followed by the 
small dog. Polly had named him 
4 Bounce,’ and as he trotted soberly at her 
heels, on a pair of very short, unsteady 
legs, he resembled nothing so much as an 
animated bunch of black zephyr worsted. 


The Adventures of Tad . 79 

“ Oh, I knew you’d like it,” was Polly’s 
confident answer, “ and you’ll like it all 
the better before the voyage is over.” 

Tad was quite delighted at this pros- 
pect. But it occurred to him all at once 
— and for the first time — that, if the voy- 
age should be a very long one, he was 
rather poorly off for clothes. Though 
perhaps (he thought) Captain Flagg could 
stop somewhere on the way, and buy him 
a few, out of the wages which he was be- 
ginning to earn. 

“ Where is the vessel bound to, miss?” 
asked Tad, respectfully, being much im- 
pressed by the matter-of-fact manner in 
which Polly spoke of the voyage that lay 
before them. 

“ Why, away down east, to Bixport, 
where father and I live,” returned Polly, 
with a comprehensive wave of her hand, 


80 The Adventures of Tad . 

which took in about half of the northern 
and eastern horizon. “ Bixport’s a real 
nice place, though it isn’t quite as big as 
Boston,” she continued, explanatorily, and 
Tad caught himself wondering if it was 
anywhere near the arctic regions of which 
he had read, and, if so, what he should do 
for an overcoat, — for even then he was 
beginning to feel chilly in his threadbare 
suit. So the afternoon wore slowly away. 
Captain Flagg smoked and steered, Polly 
played with the dog, George Washington 
got supper, Eph whittled up another shin- 
gle (which he pulled out from under the 
hatch-covering), and Tad meditated. 

“ Strike eight bells, Mr. Small, and call 
the watch ! ” shouted Captain Flagg, in a 
stentorian voice, as a glance at his old- 
fashioned timepiece showed that it was 
four o’clock, p. m. 


The Adventures of Tad. 81 

The chief mate shut up his jack-knife 
reluctantly, rose to his feet, and, dusting 
off his tarry trousers with great delibera- 
tion, struck eight resounding strokes on 
the small bell forward. Then, lounging 
aft, he relieved the wheel, and, seated 
on the rudder-head, steered with one 
hand, while the other absently fingered 
his jack-knife in his pocket. Captain 
Flagg now took a seat on the edge of 
the little trunk cabin, yawned, squinted 
his eye toward the western horizon, where 
the sun was going down in a great sea 
of purple and gold, and patronizingly 
beckoned to Tad, who, with some diffi- 
dence, sat down beside the ancient mari- 
ner. 

“ Like your shipmates in the port 
watch pretty well, my lad?” inquired the 
Captain, kindly. 


82 


The Adventures of Tad . 


With a shy glance at unconscious 
Polly, who was tantalizing Bounce by 
swinging the big sun-bonnet, by the 
strings, before his nose, Tad said he liked 
? em ever so much. 

“ That’s proper,” approvingly responded 
Captain Flagg, “and mind that you learn 
all you can from ’em. Eph is a tre- 
mend’us smart sailor,” continued the 
Captain, lowering his voice as he re- 
garded the youth in question, “ and what 
he don’t know about ship’s-duties and 
reggerlations ain’t worth knowin’.” 

As Tad’s eyes involuntarily followed the 
direction of the Captain’s gaze, he secretly 
wondered whether it was eccentricity 
that prompted Mr. Small to wear a faded 
calico shirt, battered slouch hat, tattered 
vest, and dingy canvas trousers. For 
Tad’s idea of a sailor’s rig was derived 


The Adventures of Tad . 83 

from the one or two highly wrought nau- 
tical tales which he had read in his life. 
He fancied that in all climates and weath- 
ers, Jack Tar wore a little glazed black 
hat with long ribbons, and a bluejacket re- 
splendent with brass buttons, blue trou- 
sers, silk stockings, and low quartered 
shoes. 

“But he’s the — the greatest chap to 
whittle I ever see in my life,” pursued 
Captain Flagg, meditatively, — “ the very 
greatest.” 

Polly, who overheard the remark, 
laughed gayly in the depths of her sun- 
bonnet. 

“ He’s got half a bunch of loose shingles 
in the bottom of his bunk, that he saved 
from our last deck-load, and takes out 
a fresh one every time he goes below — 
that’s where George Washington gets his 


84 The Adventures of Tad . 

kindlings for the galley-stove from,” she 
remarked, demurely. 

“The most I’m afeared of,” observed 
her father, in a confidential whisper, “ is 
that his usin’ of a jack-knife so much 
might get the vessel into some sech a 
scrape as the of British East Indy ship 
‘ Windsor Castle got into once whilst 
I was a sailor. ” 

“What was that, sir?” eagerly inquired 
Polly, knowing full well what a repository 
for the material out of which sea-yarns 
were spun was her father’s manly chest. 

“Well,” slowly returned the Captain, 
“ near’s I can remember, the story’s this. 
The ship was on her home-bound passage 
from Chiny, an’ got becalmed for two or 
three days, somewhere on the ’quator. 
So, it bein’ hot and the sailor to the 
wheel bein’ a absent-minded sort of a 


The Adventures of Tad . 85 

chap, what does he do, but out knife 
and cut his name — 4 James W. Dunn’ — 
along on the rim of the m’hogany 
wheel!” Here Captain Flagg empha- 
sized the enormity of the offence by a 
portentous shake of the head, and went 
on : — 

“ So, when the cap’n come on deck, 
there was a pretty row. He claps Jim in 
irons, and d’re’tly they got into port, had 
him ’rested, and the only way poor Jim 
could get out of it was by paying for a 
bran’-new wheel. ” 

“ That was too bad ! ” interjected Tad, 
who was eagerly listening. 

“ Well — yes,” assented Captain Flagg, 
who had a curious way of sometimes 
combining the practical and scriptural 
when occasion offered, “ but it goes to 
show, Thaddeus, that — the — the — way 


86 The Adventures of Tad . 

of transgressions is hard, and — any- 
how, — ” said the Captain, breaking off his 
quotation rather hastily, as he saw a glee- 
ful twinkle in Polly’s eyes, “ anyhow, it 
took nigh all the wages Jim had cornin’ to 
him, and so he felt so bad that he went to 
c’nsult a great London lawyer about it.” 

“ I don’t see what good that would do,” 
observed practical Polly; but, pa}dng no 
attention to his daughter’s unconscious 
sarcasm, the Captain went-on. 

“ The lawyer, he studied over it a spell, 
and told Jim to go off to sea ag’in, and, 
when he came back to London, to give 
him a call. So Jim went off, and shipped 
on a long v’y’ge, and it was nigh two 
years ’fore he was back; the Win’sor 
Castle , she’d come in meanwhile, and the 
lawyer had her libelled, as they call it — 
a kind of a warrant served on her, like a 


The Adventures of Tad . 87 

’tachment on property. And what do 
you s’pose,” asked the Captain, slowly, at 
this culminating point of interest, “ what 
do you s’pose was the charge he brought 
ag’in the owners of the ship ? ” 

Polly timidly thought it might be the 
sailor’s false imprisonment; she remem- 
bered to have heard that such things were 
done sometimes, while Tad shook his 
head in silent bewilderment. 

“Well, sir,” exclaimed Captain Flagg, 
pointing his topic, so to speak, by touch- 
ing the end of one stumpy forefinger with 
the tip of the other, and speaking with 
intense though quiet enjoyment, “ he put 
it like this: ‘ James W. Dunn, my client,’ 
he says, 4 claims pay at the rate of five 
pound a day for the use of his wheel, 
durin’ a eighteen-months voyage. It’s 
his wheel, isn’t it ? he had to pay for it, 


88 The Adventures of Tad . 

and there’s his name on the rim. The 
ship’s had the use of it all this while, and 
a ship can’t get along without a wheel no 
better’n without a compass,’ says the 
lawyer, ‘ and you can settle it right here 
now, or else we’ll take it up to the 
adm’ralty court.’ ” 

“ Wasn’t he smart ! and did the owners 
have to pay it ? ” exclaimed and ques- 
tioned Polly in the same breath. 

Captain Flagg nodded an affirmative. 

“ And so the sailor got a big lot of 
money ? ” put in Tad as an interrogative. 

“ He got what the lawyer left, most 
likely,” returned Captain Flagg, rather 
dryly, — which slight reflection against 
the legal profession was, fortunately, not 
understood by his hearers. 

The sun disappeared behind the ocean 
rim, and after supper the side-lights were 


The Adventures of Tad . 89 

put out, and Tad instructed as to the 
duties of a lookout; for now the Mary /. 
was headed right out toward the open 
sea, which looked terribly dark and cold 
to Tad's astonished eyes, particularly as 
there was no such thing as a sign of land 
anywhere to be seen, excepting the low 
sandy Cape shores astern, which were fast 
disappearing in the distance and increas- 
ing darkness. 

Before sending the youthful mariner 
for’ard, Captain Flagg called him be- 
low, and gravely commanded him to put 
on some well worn under-flannels, several 
sizes too large, which, however, Tad 
found very comfortable, a pea-jacket, 
within whose capacious folds three or 
four boys of Tad’s dimensions could have 
been buttoned, and a large fur cap, 
which, only for resting on the rims of his 


90 The Adveiitures of Tad . 

ears, would have completely extinguished 
him. 

“You don’t look so stylish as you 
might,” Captain Flagg acknowledged, 
after Tad had effected the required 
change, “ but sailors go in for comfort, 
mor’n style with which assurance Tad 
— conscious that he looked rather funny, 
to say the least — was fain to be comforted. 
Indeed, the most that troubled him was 
the fear that Miss Polly might possibly 
laugh when he ventured on deck. But, 
though Polly had been brought up in the 
country, she had too much natural polite- 
ness to laugh; yet it must be confessed 
that the depths of the deep sun-bonnet 
hid a dimple or two, as Tad waddled 
forward, wondering what the matter 
could be with the water to make the 
vessel tumble about so. 


CHAPTER V. 

Darker and darker grew the night, 
the wind sounded more and more dreary, 
the vessel tossed about in what seemed 
to Tad a terrible dangerous manner, 
while he began to feel an unpleasant 
nausea, which recalled his first and last 
experience in trying to smoke a five-cent 
cigar. 

“ I wonder if I ain’t going to be a little 
sea-sick,” thought Tad, with a terrible 
sinking sensation in the neighborhood 
of his stomach. It was fortunate that 
none of the far-away dots of red and 
green, which represented the lights of 
distant ships, came very near the track 


91 


92 The Adventures of Tad . 

of the Mary J., for the unfortunate look- 
out very soon became insensible to every- 
thing but his own sufferings. 

When Eph came forward to strike 
the bell, poor Tad was whooping over 
the rail, in all the agonies of sea-sickness, 
which was not made a particle less pain- 
ful by Eph’s assertion that it wasn’t 
nothin’ killin’ — he’d soon get over it. 
Meanwhile — 

“ The storm grew loud apace, 

The water wraith was shrieking.” 

And as Captain Flagg glanced at the com- 
pass and the sky, he expressed a wish 
that he’d “ come to anchor in the lower 
bay, and hung on till mornin’.” 

But wishing availed nothing, now that 
the Mary J, was well out to sea, with 
the March wind blowing half a gale 
offshore. And as the next best thing to 


93 


The Adventures of Tctd . 

being anchored was laying the schooner 
to, the Captain shouted as a preliminary 
warning : — 

“ All han’s short’ n sail ! ” 

“All hands” came tumbling aft — that 
is, Eph and G. Washington Jones did. 
Tad himself was already there, having 
crawled into the very centre of a big 
coil of rope, where he huddled down as 
in a big-bird’s nest, groaning and sighing, 
and occasionally faintly calling upon some 
one to cast him into the depths of the sea. 
Captain Flagg was on the quarter-deck 
too, his heavy gum boots seeming to 
appear in half a dozen places simultane- 
ously, as he pulled, and hauled, and 
shouted, in the ensuing operation of 
reefing, while Polly, enwrapped as to her 
slim form in a sort of feminine storm- 
coat of water-proof cloth, which buttoned 


94 The Adventures of Tad . 

tightly about her, and an oil-skin hat 
fastened under her plump chin, stood 
holding the wheel, in obedience to her 
father’s cheery commands. 

All that took place was to Tad’s bewil- 
dered mind a terrible complicated expe- 
rience. He knew that while the Alary J. 
was pitching and tossing and rolling in 
all sorts of ways, the sails were lowered 
part way down the mast, where they hung 
banging and slatting in a most exasperat- 
ing manner. And he was dimly con- 
scious of seeing Eph’s long legs astride the 
boom-end, waving hither and thither, as 
he tugged at a rope, while Captain Flagg 
and George Washington performed the 
most unheard-of prodigies of seamanship, 
as, despite the struggling and bellying 
of the stiff canvas, they contrived to 
tie it down to the boom, so that when the 


95 


The Adventures of Tad. 

sails were hoisted up again, they were 
not nearly as large as before. 

And then waxing bold, the gallant old 
sea-dog, Captain Jethro Flagg, decided 
that, instead of lying to till morning, 
he would — to use his own nautical 
expression — “ keep her a-jogging to the 
nor’ard and eastward.” 

So all through that eventful night the 
Mary J. pursued her billowy course, 
while poor Tad, in a sadly demoralized 
state of mind and body, lay nested in 
the coil of rope I have mentioned, feeling, 
even in his deathly sickness, oh, so 
ashamed! that Polly, a girl, not quite as 
old as himself, should show such courage, 
while he, a lubberly boy, couldn’t even 
offer to do the least thing to keep the 
vessel from going 'straight to the bottom 
of the sea ! But I myself don’t think 


96 The Adventures of Tad . 

there was anything very strange in the 
matter. It was Tad’s first experience, 
and sea-sickness, like conscience, makes 
cowards of us all. The Atlantic Ocean 
is a terrible fellow to take the courage 
out of a landsman, when it gets on a sort 
of rampage; and I don’t wonder that 
aesthetic Mr. Oscar Wilde, with his fas- 
tidious tastes, should shudderingly declare 
that he was disappointed with it. But 
I believe that, in spite of this severe 
criticism, the Atlantic goes right on roar- 
ing and dashing, and swallowing up ships, 
and making people sea-sick, just as it has 
been doing for ever so long. 

Tad couldn’t be persuaded to go below. 
He thought that when the vessel did 
come to go down, he would perhaps 
stand a better chance on deck — though, it 
is true, he couldn’t swim a stroke. And 


97 


The Adventures of Tad . 

as he lay there all night long till sunrise, 
his sickness began to abate a little, as did 
also the stiff westerly breeze which, 
coming further from the south, gave the 
Mary J. a perfectly fair wind for her 
home-bound passage. 

They were all so kind, when, quite 
dizzy and weak, Tad managed to stagger 
to his feet, like a fly thawed out by the 
warm rays of the morning sun, which 
dried up the wet deck, and made the 
waves of the great blue sea all about 
them sparkle with gladness. George 
Washington got him some hot coffee, and 
said he was glad to see him 66 condoles- 
cent.” Captain Flagg, who looked quite 
fresh and hearty in spite of having been 
up all night, smiled broadly, telling Tad 
that he’d got over the worst of it, and 
would begin to get his sea-legs on in a 


98 The Adventures of Tad . 

jiffy. Eph grinned at him over the top of 
the wheel, and proffered the use of his 
jack-knife, if he (Tad) wanted to whittle. 
Polly glanced at him demurely, and 
Bounce lapped the ends of Tad’s extended 
fingers. On the whole, Tad didn’t feel 
nearly as badly regarding his humiliation 
as he had expected to; but all his bright 
visions of the pleasures of seafaring life 
had been swallowed up in the darkness 
and terror of the night before. He was 
not intended by nature for a sailor, and 
now Tad’s greatest desire was to set his 
foot on dry land again. I know that, in 
contrast with the average boy of juvenile 
fiction, this sounds tremendously un- 
heroic, but I can’t help it ; there are 
“born sailors” and born landsmen, and 
Tad was one of the latter. One must 
take people and things as he finds them, 


The Adventures of Tad . 99 

in real life. Yet, as Tad began to feel 
better, there was much to wonder at and 
admire all about him. Far away on the 
port hand was the distant coast-line, 
dotted here and there by the white 
shaft of a light-house. To starboard, the 
ocean rolled on and on, till its waters 
washed the very rim of the great arching 
dome of blue which came down to meet 
it. On every side were the sails of 
passing vessels, and beautiful beyond 
compare was the sight of a handsome 
ship, with all drawing sail set, standing in 
for Boston Light, heading almost directly 
for the schooner. On she came, with her 
yards braced sharp against the back- 
stays, throwing the sparkling foam 
from the cutwater in great swaths, that 
swept along her glassy sides and formed 
a creamy track astern. As the stranger 


ioo The Adventures of Tad . 

was passing so near, Captain Flagg hailed 
her through an immense tin speaking- 
trumpet. 

“ What ship’s that, an’ where from ? ” 

“ Ship Sooloo , a hundred and thirty 
days from Calcutta — what vessel’s 
that ? ” bellowed back the captain, who 
was standing by the weather mizzen 
rigging, with his hand on a backstay. 

“ Schooner Mary y.,of Bixport; twenty- 
four hours out er Boston,” bawled Captain 
Flagg, with a gracious wave of the hand; 
and Tad, who had listened to these 
nautical queryings and replies with great 
marvelling, wondered what made the 
captain of the ship double himself up, like 
a man with a sudden attack of colic, or 
like a person in an agony of laughter, as 
the great vessel went plunging onward 
toward her destination. 


The Adventures of Tad . ioi 

“ Them that goes down to the sea in 
ships has cur’us experiences, Thaddeus,” 
said Captain Flagg, laying down his big 
trumpet with an impressive nod of the 
head. 

With a vivid recollection of his own 
experience of the previous night, Tad 
replied emphatically that he had no doubt 
of it. 

“ When you come to be a sailor, 
Thaddeus, and, maybe, a ship-master, like 
myself, ” pursued the captain, feeling 
mechanically in his pockets for his pipe, — 
which he discovered, a moment later, to 
be on the deck, in possession of Bounce, 
who was gravely dragging it away, to the 
immeasurable delight of Polly, — “ an’ 
you’ve gone through the responsibilities, 
an’ dangers, an’ typhoons — an’ — things 
gen’lly,” he rather hazily concluded, as 


102 The Adventui'es of Tad. 

he recovered his pipe from Bounce, 
“ you’ll re’lize that what Solomon says 
about truth bein’ stronger’n friction is jest 
about as he’s put it.” 

“ But I — I— don’t think I want to be a 
sailor,” faltered Tad, with downcast eyes. 

“What — not want to be a sailyer 
bold, and plough the ragin’ main,” ex- 
claimed the Captain, with a look of unut- 
terable amazement. 

“ No, sir,” faintly replied Tad. And 
as he thus spoke, he hung his head so 
far one side that the big fur cap fell off, 
and was immediately seized by Bounce 
who began to worry it, evidently regarding 
it as some new species of the feline race, 
until, in the fervor of his attack, he fell 
into it bodily, and gave vent -to small 
yelps, expressive of extreme fear. 

It was some time before the Captain 


The Adventures of Tad . 


103 


recovered from the shock occasioned by 
Tad’s reply. That a likely boy should 
prefer a prosaic existence ashore, who had 
once tasted the pleasurable excitement of 
“a life on the ocean wave,” passed his 
simple comprehension. But gradually 
yielding to Polly’s artful arguments, Cap- 
tain Flagg’s brow began to clear. 

“ All right, my lad,” he said, quite 
cheerfully. “I own I’m a bit struck 
aback, but, seeing you don’t take nat’rally 
to sailorizin’, there’s no press-gangs now- 
adays to force you into goin’ against your 
will. Only,” remarked Captain Flagg, 
tilting back his oil-skin hat, and scratch- 
ing his head reflectively, “ I don’t just 
know what to do with you, now you’ve 
changed your mind.” 

“ / know ! ” suddenly exclaimed Polly, 
clapping her hands. 


104 The Adventures of Tad . 

“Well?” asked her father, interroga- 
tively. 

“We’ll find him a chance on a farm 
when we get to Bixport,” returned 
Polly, confidently. “You’d like farming 
— wouldn’t you, Tad ? ” 

Tad nodded with growing enthusiasm. 
He knew that farming had something 
to do with new milk and fresh butter 
and driving horses. Whatever it was, 
it would be far preferable to going to 
sea. And so it was pretty definitely 
settled that Tad should be a farmer, 
provided he be able, through the Captain’s, 
influence, to find a situation. 

When Tad came on deck at sunrise 
the following morning, sleepily rubbing 
his eyes, he rubbed them still harder, 
and, moreover, gave his elbow a sly pinch 
to make sure that he was fully awake as 




\ 








A VIEW OF “DOWN EAST.” 


a 








The Adventures of Tad . 105 

he saw the strange transformation that had 
taken place in his surroundings of the 
previous night. 

For lo! in place of the far-reaching 
sea, green fields, alternating with forests 
of oak or pine, sloped down on either 
hand to the edge of a broad river as 
smooth and clear as glass on whose up- 
moving tide the Mary J. was slowly 
drifting. 

“ Wh-y-y,” exclaimed Tad, staring 
about him in glad surprise, u where is 
this, anyway ? ” 

“ This is ‘ down east,’ Tad,” laughed 
Polly, enjoying his look of perplexity. 

“ Bixport’s right ahead there, where 
you see the meetin’-house steeple over 
the tree-tops, yonder,” said Captain Flagg, 
pointing ahead, “and I can tell you, Tad, 
when a man b’en facin’ the dangers of 


io6 The Adventures of Tad . 

the boisterous ocean as we sailors has to, 
the words of the poet Shakspeare, — 

* Home ag’in — home ag’in 
From a furrin shore, 

And oh ! it fills my soul with joy 
To see my fren’s once more,’ — 

goes to the right spot.” 

Tad respectfully replied that he was 
sure they must, and, at the same time, 
gave a little, involuntary sigh, as he re- 
membered his own homeless condition. 
“But, maybe, I can get a chance with a 
real clever man, and, if I’m smart, save 
up my money, and some day buy a little 
house of my own,” thought Tad, who 
had rather a hopeful disposition. And so, 
with the same interest that he had given 
to the sights on the great deep, Tad 
watched the to him almost equally 
novel scenes on the shores which they 


The Adventures of Tad. 107 

were passing, — scenes that, though per- 
fectly familiar, were hailed with the 
enthusiasm of voyagers returning from 
at least a three years’ cruise, by the entire 
ship’s-company. 

“John Doty’s got the same old white- 
face cow ” (he pronounced it kaow) “ he 
had when we went away ; he talked of 
swappin’ with Ozias Nas’n, one spell,” 
said Eph, as the schooner, drifting slowly 
with the tide, was borne within a cable’s 
length of the shore, where a number of 
cows were browsing on the short pasture- 
grass, which grew down to within a few 
feet of high-water mark. 

“ Square Hall’s had the line fence ’twixt 
him and old Burton whitewashed, I see,” 
Captain Flagg observed, as he stood with 
his eagle eye glancing shoreward through 
the canvas-covered telescope. 


108 The Adventures of Tad . 

And as the Mary J. very deliberately 
rounded a densely wooded point, aided 
by a light breeze which had begun to fill 
the schooner’s sails, and the town of Bix- 
port appeared in full view, even Polly rec- 
ognized with rapture that the roof of the 
school-house had been newly shingled. 

“For this and all other mercies the 
Lord make us truly grateful,” said Cap- 
tain Flagg, reverently, as he took off his 
oil-skin hat, in which it was popularly 
believed he slept while voyaging over 
the main. 

This was his invariable form of thanks- 
giving, as soon as Bixport wharf was 
sighted, and with its utterance Captain 
Flagg dove into the cabin, there to throw 
aside, with his seafaring attire, the 
weighty responsibilities of the voyage. 

Ten minutes later, as the Mary J. 


The Adventures of Tad . 109 

neared the wharf, where half of the 
residents of Bixport seemed to have 
assembled, Captain Flagg reappeared on 
deck in his go-ashore suit, consisting of a 
tall hat, a crumpled suit of navy-blue, and 
low-quartered shoes highly polished. In 
a commanding voice the captain gave the 
necessary orders for bringing the schooner 
alongside the wharf. Down came the 
dingy sails, and a half-dozen pairs of 
hands were extended to catch the lines 
thrown from the deck. Enthusiastic 
were the greetings extended to the ship’s 
company, for the quiet of the little inland 
village had never been disturbed by the 
locomotive’s scream or the sound of a 
steamer’s paddles, and the arrival of the 
only sailing packet between Bixport and 
Boston was an event of considerable 
importance. There were on board at 


no The Adventures of Tad . 

least three large boxes of dry goods, a 
case of millinery, a hogshead of molasses, 
and other groceries in proportion, for Mr. 
Jones, the store-keeper ; Mr. Allen, the 
minister, had a package of books ; ’Zias 
Nason, a new harness, and Deacon 
Whitney, a mowing-machine, — the first 
of its kind ever seen in Bixport. 

Among those assembled on the wharf, 
Tad noticed a boy about his own age, 
dressed in a well worn suit of tweed. 
He had curly hair, a pair of very laugh- 
ing blue eyes, a turn-up nose, and a 
freckled face. Most prominent in voice 
and action was this youth, who, upon 
catching sight of Eph, performed a shuffle 
suggestive of delight, and in a very 
audible voice called out, — 

“ ‘ Hooray — three cheers for Ephraim Small, 

First mate, second mate, crew, and all ! * ” 


The Adventures of Tad . 1 1 1 

“ That’s my cousin — Joe Whitney,” 
laughed Polly, as Master Joe proceeded 
in vigorous pantomime to express un- 
bounded joy at seeing Polly, who waved 
her hand in recognition. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Joe was the first to spring on board; 
and it was evident that Joe Whitney was 
a youth of considerable vivacity, to say 
the least. He slapped Captain Flagg 
familiarly on the shoulder, saluted the 
grinning George Washington in a most 
hilarious manner, and, rushing frantically 
aft, seized upon Bounce with a shout of 
jubilation. 

“ I say, Polly,” he exclaimed, “ what a 
jolly little dog, — only you orter have him 
muzzled — he looks savage ! ” 

“ There’s some boys I know that 
wouldn’t be worse if they were muzzled,” 
gravely observed Captain Flagg — rescu- 
ing Bounce from the hands of his nephew, 


1 1 2 


The Adventures of Tad . 1 13 

who was preparing to stand the small dog 
on his hind legs, — though he tempered 
the severity of this hint by a slight 
internal chuckle, and a wink of intense 
meaning. 

“No! is that so, Uncle Jeth?” re- 
turned Joe, regarding Tad with a look of 
seeming apprehension. “ He don’t seem 
like one of that kind,” added the youthful 
speaker, with affected innocence, as Cap- 
tain Flagg turned away to hide a smile. 

“ Oh, Joe Whitney, you’re just as bad 
as ever,” Polly exclaimed, despairingly; 
and then, remembering that the polite 
usages of society called for a formal in- 
troduction, she added, — 

“Joe, this is Tad Thorne, -—I hope 
you’ll be ever so good friends.” 

“How are you, Tad?” said Joe, with 
a shy twinkle in his eye. 


1 14 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ How are you Joe ? ” awkwardly 
returned Tad, who didn’t very well know 
what else to say, and, on the whole, 
rather fancying the easy, off-hand manner 
of Polly’s cousin. But, then, everybody 
liked Joe, as a general thing — even those 
Bixport people who insisted that if he 
was Deacon Whitney’s son, he was the 
worst boy in the place. 

Yet Joe’s badness was nothing so very 
bad, after all. He was only one of those 
restless, fun-loving boys, who are never 
so well content as when they are in mis- 
chief ; and neither the protestations of his 
mother, nor the occasional thrashings 
administered by the good deacon, had 
anything more than a merely temporary 
effect. 

“ Did you come from Boston ? ” asked 
Joe, as Tad, with a home-sick feeling 


The Adventures of Tad . 115 

under his jacket, watched Polly and her 
father getting ready to leave the vessel, 
for, of course, he expected to have to stay 
on board until some different arrange- 
ment was made for him. 

“No, from Philadelphia,” returned Tad, 
and Joe began to regard him with a sort 
of respect; for Philadelphia, in the eyes 
of Bixport people, was one of the most 
wonderful cities in the whole world. 

“ Come on, Tad; we’re all ready,” 
called Polly, and I can assure you that 
Tad was not more than a minute in 
running below after the little hand- 
satchel, which he determined not to let 
out of his possession, and returning to the 
deck. 

“ Isn’t it nice that you’re going home 
with us?” said Polly, as the little party of 
three walked up the wharf, leaving Joe 


ii 6 The Adventures of Tad . 

climbing up the Mai'y Jds rigging, three 
ratlines at a step. 

Tad thought it was decidedly nice, and 
his smiling face expressed more than his 
brief words as, dropping behind Polly 
and her father, he followed them at a 
respectful distance. 

“ This is Main Street,” explained Polly, 
turning a beaming face upon him, as, leav- 
ing the wharf, they entered the village 
itself. 

“Oh!” said Tad, filled with amaze- 
ment, and thinking how funny it all 
was — the narrow plank walk, the grass 
growing green by the wayside, with 
cows — real live cows! — feeding on it ! 
Tad caught himself wondering what a 
country cow would do in a Philadelphia 
street — say Broad Street, for example! 
And then, too, eve^thing was so quiet. 


The Adventures of Tad . 117 

Occasionally a farm-wagon rolled lei- 
surely by, or an ox-cart, with a brow T n-faced 
man, in shirt-sleeves, sitting sideways 
on the cart-tongue, jolted slowly along. 
Tad, who had never seen any oxen 
before, regarded them as a probable new 
and superior breed of cows. 

At little intervals along the street, 
great elm and maple trees were growing, 
— trees whose shade in summer nearly 
hid the quaint old houses behind them 
from view. Just now their branches 
were bare, but the warm April sun which 
shone down through them suggested that 
soon they would begin to throw out shoot 
and bud. Already some bluebirds and a 
robin or two were comparing musical 
notes in the tree-tops, as they discussed the 
shortest passages from the south, or began 
laying their plans for spring housekeeping. 


1 1 8 The Adventures of Tad . 

A little further on stood the one store 
and post-office combined, then came the 
town pump, the school-house, a small 
church with a square tower like a sentry- 
box, and then — 

“ Our house,” rapturously cried Polly, 
and, dropping Bounce, who waddled along 
after her as fast as his short legs would 
carry him, she darted through an open 
gateway and up a trim gravel walk, and 
was directly afterward enfolded in the 
motherly arms of Mrs. Flagg, who was 
short and stout like her husband, and 
beamed so genially upon Tad, through 
a pair of brass-bowed spectacles, a mo- 
ment or two later, that his heart warmed 
toward her at once. 

“ Our house ” was a funny little one- 
story building with what the Bixport 
people call a “ gambril roof,” making it 


The Adventures of Tad . 119 

seem to an imaginative person as though 
it were shrugging it’s shoulders with its 
hands in its pockets. The windows were 
small, with tin}^ panes of glass, and the 
front door, painted a lively pea-green, 
had a wonderfully bright brass knocker 
in the centre of the upper panel. There 
was a weather-beaten barn at the rear, 
from whose open doors issued flocks of 
noisy hens, while a number of doves 
“ courooed ” on the roofs in the sun- 
shine; the little dooryard was over- 
grown with syringa and lilac bushes, 
and the two or three dilapidated flower- 
beds were bordered with large clam- 
shells. 

Tad had a good chance to notice all this, 
because the Flaggs were some little time 
in getting into the house, as at every few 
steps Mrs. Flagg had to stop and speak 


120 The Adventures of Tad . 

of some bit of news, parenthesizing the 
same by giving Polly a hug. 

Polly had certain Bostonian experiences 
to narrate — particularly the one where 
Tad and Bounce were prominent, and even 
Captain Flagg himself tarried on the 
doorstep a moment, to illustrate, by pen- 
cilled diagram on the threshold, the 
whereabouts of the Mary J. when it 
came on to blow heavy from the west’ard 
the first night out. 

But finally they all got into the dining- 
room, where Tad seated himself in a very 
uncompromising chair made to fit into 
a corner, and sitting on the extreme verge 
thereof, with his cap held in both hands 
resting on his knees, glanced interestedly 
about him, while the tongues of the others 
wagged unflaggingly — if I may be al- 
lowed the expression. 


The Adve?itures of Tad . 12 1 

He soon made up his mind that the 
inside of the little house was as delight- 
fully quaint as its exterior. In the first 
place, an oak wainscoting ran around the 
walls nearly as high as Tad’s shoulder. 
All the furniture was black with age, 
and of the severest hair-cloth and mahog- 
any order, for, like the house, it had been 
in being considerably over a century. 
In the corner stood a tall pale-faced clock, 
that had monotonously ticked away a 
hundred and ten years, second by second. 
On the mantle were some sea-shells, a 
pair of china vases, and a small wooden 
ship, whittled out by Ephraim K. Small. 
And beneath the mantle was a large 
open fire-place, where the fire itself 
leaped up incessantly and rubbed its 
glowing hands together, with warm smiles 
that were reflected in the polished faces 


122 The Adventures of Tad, 

of the brass-headed andirons. Just such 
a fire as one likes to sit in front of when 
it is snowing and sleeting and blowing 
out-of-doors, and listen to tales of ship- 
wrecks and storms at sea. 

The talk went on uninterruptedly till 
dinner-time, and then came a meal, to 
which Tad did more than ample justice. 
He said afterward that he was ashamed 
to have eaten so much. But when a 
hungry growing boy is set down to cold 
beef, and hot biscuit, and fresh butter, 
and new gingerbread, with pie and dough- 
nuts besides, what else can be expected? 

After dinner Polly took Tad out to 
make the acquaintance of the pig and 
hens, while Mrs. Flagg cleared up the 
dishes, during which operation Captain 
Flagg, between the whiffs of his pipe, 
told her Tad’s simple story, and men- 


123 


The Adventures of Tad . 

tioned the boy’s expressed desire to get 
work of some kind in the country. 

“ Why,” exclaimed Mrs. Flagg, with 
enthusiasm in her voice and a dish-towel 
in her hand, “ now if that don’t seem provi- 
dential like ; Miss Smith run up to bring 
some yeast this morning, and she was in 
a peck of trouble. Dan Crosby — you 
remember Dan — he wanted to go off to 
sea with you las’ summer ?” 

The Captain intimated by a grunt that 
he recollected the youth very well. 

“Well, Dan had been working there 
for a year,” the good lady went on, “and 
Miss Smith said she’d noticed he was 
getting dretful sort of uppish, lately, and 
because she gave him a talking to for 
smoking sweet-fern cigars in bed, he 
told her he wasn’t going to be ordered 
round by no woman, if he knowed his- 


124 The Adventures of Tad . 

self, so he up and left, and she pay- 
ing of him two dollars a week and 
board ! ” 

“ I’d given him something mor’n a talk- 
ing to,” remarked Captain Flagg, emphati- 
cally, as he knocked the ashes from his 
pipe, p and rose to his feet. “ I guess, 
Mary Jane,” he continued, reaching for 
his hat, “ I’ll jest drift down to Miss 
Smith’s, and see how the land lays — if 
she ain’t shipped any one, that’s the very 
place for Tad.” With which remark 
the Captain rolled out of the door and 
down the street, on his benevolent errand, 
while Mrs. Flagg, having finished clearing 
away the dinner things, took up her knit- 
ting for the rest of the afternoon. 

Meanwhile, Tad and Polly were wan- 
dering about the premises, followed by 
Bounce, who, being a city-reared puppy, 


The Adventures of Tad. 125 

seemed to find everything as delight- 
fully novel and strange as did Tad him- 
self. 

“ I never thought the country was so 
nice,” said Tad with an expressive sigh, 
as the two leaned over the garden fence 
and looked down the wide quiet street. 
An old-fashioned stage-coach, drawn by 
three horses, was rumbling along in 
the direction of the one hotel locally 
called a “tahvern,” which boasted of a 
room where General Lafayette had slept. 
Thrice a week this antiquated vehicle 
made the journey between Bixport and 
Middleboro — a flourishing inland town, 
twenty miles distant — with the mails and 
an occasional venturesome passenger. 
Farther down, at the end of the thorough- 
fare, the masts of the Mary J. outlined 
themselves against the sky, and a glimpse 


126 The Adventures of Tad . 

of Bixport river, on its way to the ocean, 
could be seen. 

“ I ’spose you’ve lived here ever since 
you were born,” continued Tad, a little 
wistfully. To have been reared in a 
peaceful home like this, with the loving 
care of parents continually about one, 
seemed to homeless, orphaned Tad the 
very highest happiness earth could afford. 

Polly opened her eyes very wide in- 
deed. 

“ Why — don’t you know ? How 
funny ! ” she exclaimed, turning a won- 
dering face toward her companion. 

As Tad hadn’t the slightest conception of 
her meaning, he shook his head in silence. 

“ Of course, you don’t, though,” said 
Polly, recollecting herself. “Come with 
me,” she said, soberly, touching Tad on the 
arm; and, curious to know her meaning, 


The Adventures of Tad . 127 

he followed Polly through the gate, and 
across the street to what was locally 
known as the “ meetin’-house lot.” Be- 
hind the little old weather-beaten wooden 
church, on either side of which stood a 

row of solemn-looking poplars, was the 
J * 

village burying-ground, into which, to 
Tad’s great wonderment, Polly silently 
• led the way. 

A short distance from the entrance, 
a flat moss-grown tombstone was raised 
upon two slight brick elevations at either 
end, on which, in almost illegible letters, 
were the words : — 

Sacred to the memory of 
DEBORAH SAYLES. 

AGED 22 . 

Killed by ye Indians, 

June ye 27, a. d. 1734. 

Sitting down on the old stone as on a 
bench, Polly motioned Tad to a seat 


128 The Adventures of Tad . 


beside her. Just in front of them stood 
a plain white marble slab. 

“ Read it,” briefly said Polly, in a very 
low tone, as she pointed to the inscription. 

Awed by Polly’s manner, as well as by 
the solemn stillness, only broken by the 
breathing of the soft south wind through 
the leafless branches overhead, Tad read, 
in a subdued voice : — 

“ ‘ Here lies — 
the body of a very beautiful 
unknown lady — one of the passengers 
on board the ill-fated steamer Pomerania 
which went ashore near the mouth 
of Bixport river, in the great gale of Feb. 24, 1862. 

Seventy-one souls were lost. 

“ ‘ Floating hair all tangled and torn 
Beautiful head laid low on the sand 
Pride all out of the arching lips 
Life all out of the marble hands — 

Oh terrible, restless, trembling sea 
How could you leave her alone with death? 
Clasping her close in a cold embrace 
And stealing away the last faint breath? * ” 


CHAPTER VII. 

“Mr. Allen, our minister, took that 
verse from a paper, and had it cut on the 
stone — isn’t it beautiful!” softly said 
Polly. 

“Yes, indeed,” returned Tad, consider- 
ably bewildered, “ only I don’t see what 
it has to do with you.” 

“Wait! I am going to tell you all 
about it,” his companion responded. But 
she sat a moment or two without speak- 
ing, resting her chin in the hollow of her 
small hand, and her dark eyes looking far 
off seaward. Through the hushed stillness, 
the distant voice of the ocean came to 
their ears, sounding soft and low, like the 


129 


130 The Adventures of Tad . 

imprisoned echoes that one hears in a 
sea-shell. 

“ It was in the great gale of ’62, when 
fifteen vessels and a hundred and twenty 
men were lost on ‘ George’s Banks,’ ” said 
Polly, abruptly. “The Pomerania drove 
ashore on some reefs at the mouth of the 
river, near where the light-house stands 
now. A fisherman came up to Bixport, 
and told people about it. Everybody 
— the men, I mean — got down to the 
point as soon as they could. There 
wasn’t any life-boat, and they say the sea 
was something awful. But there was a 
whaleboat that belonged to George 
Hudson, and so Captain Flagg got five 
fishermen to go off with him in it, though 
nobody thought they could ever get 
through the surf line. But they did , and 
just managed to reach the steamer as she 


The Adventures of Tad . 13 1 

was breaking up. The poor people were 
in the water crying, and ” — 

Here Polly stopped a moment and 
caught her breath, while Tad felt a 
curious lump rising in his throat. He 
touched Polly’s small hand with his own 
rough one in mute sympathy, but, 
frightened at his boldness, drew it 
hastily away, and after a little she 
went on. 

“ The men pulled four into the boat. 
Then,” said Polly in a hushed awe-struck 
voice, “a lady — a beautiful lady with a 
little baby in her arms, was drifting by. 
Captain Flagg reached out for her, but 
she said ‘ my baby first,’ and held it right 
up in both hands, so he couldn’t help 
catching hold of it. Then a great sea 
swept the lady away. — A piece of the 
wreck broke a hole in the boat’s side,” 


132 The Adventures of Tad, 

continued Polly, steadying her voice with 
an effort, “ and the crew had hard work 
to get ashore. They managed to some- 
how, though, and the saved people were 
sent up to Bixport. Captain Flagg took 
the baby — that was me — home to his 
wife. Ever and ever so many bodies 
drifted ashore,” said Polly, with a little 
shudder, “ and the beautiful lady among 
them. Some of the passengers had seen 
her with her husband and baby on board 
the steamer, but no one of the saved 
people knew their names. Lots of folks 
who had friends and relations on the 
Pomerania came on to Bixport and took 
the bodies away; but nobody recognized 
the beautiful lady, so Captain Flagg had 
her buried here, and this stone put up. 
There was a ring on her wedding finger, 
that I always wear on a little chain 


The Adventures of Tad . 133 

round my neck,”— and Polly touched the 
front of her simple linen collar, “ with 
‘ Pauline ’ engraved inside, so Captain 
Flagg named me the same — that’s why 
they call me ‘ Polly.’ ” 

“ Then the beautiful lady was your 
mother, and you the little baby ! ” 
breathlessly cried Tad. 

Polly nodded gravely, and again the 
far-away look came into her eyes, as they 
rested on the grassy mound at her feet. 
But soon the practical side of her nature 
asserted itself. 

“ Come, Tad,” she said, rising to her 
feet, “it’s getting pretty near supper-time, 
and I must help Mother Flagg, — she’s got 
doughnuts to fry.” So the two made 
their way out of the old church-yard, and 
entered the home gate at the same time 
as Captain Flagg, who, with a radiant 


134 The Adventures of Tad . 

face, was just returning from his interview 
with Miss Smith. 

“ You’re to go over there in the morn- 
ing, Tad,” said the captain, after disclosing 
to him the nature of his own errand to 
the house of the maiden lady in question, 
“and if she likes the cut of your jib, she’ll 
hire you on trial for a spell, at two dollars 
a week and board, — what do you say to 
that ? ” 

For a moment or two Tad could say 
nothing whatever; the prospect of earn- 
ing such a sum at the very onset, fairly 
took away his breath. More than a hun- 
dred dollars a year, and board beside ! 
Why, it would not be so very long, at that 
rate, before he should be able to buy 
himself the little home of his dreams. 

“Well, didn’t you hear what I said? 
’pears to me you’re dretful deef ! ” ob- 


The Adventures of Tad . 135 

served the captain, a little sharply, 
thinking perhaps that Tad’s silence arose 
from a disinclination to accept the offer 
which he, Captain Flagg, knew was a 
most favorable one. 

“ Who’s that’s so dretful deef — Tad ?” 
interposed a familiar voice, before Tad 
could frame a reply. The speaker was 
no other than Joe Whitney, who, scenting 
the odor of frying doughnuts in passing, 
had come in for a possible share of the 
spoils, just in time to hear his uncle’s 
remark. 

u Deef as a haddock,” grumbled the 
captain, irritably, “ and dumb into the 
bargain, anybody’d think; for here I’ve as 
good as got him a berth to Miss Smith’s, 
and he’s to go over there fust thing in the 
morning for a kind of over-haulin’, but 
when I tell him, he never so much as says 


136 The Adventures of Tad . 

whether he’s glad or sorry — don’t say 
nothin’, in fact.” And here, as the 
captain paused for breath, astonished Tad 
had at last a chance to explain himself. 

“ Indeed, sir,” exclaimed the boy, with 
sparkling eyes and eager speech, “ it’s 
only because that I’m so glad and so — 
so — everything,” said Tad, unable to 
frame his gratitude, “ that I can’t say 
what I want to.” 

The captain, who saw his mistake, was 
instantly appeased. He patted Tad on 
the shoulder in the most friendly manner 
imaginable, and after clearing his throat 
told him in a low tone that Solomon hit 
the nail square on the head when he said 
that there’s a Providence that shapes our 
ends, refuse them as much as we’ve a 
mind to, and then, remembering that the 
small satchel was still in Tad’s possession, 


The Adventuixs of Tad . 137 

he got together his writing materials, and, 
with the help of the “ Business Man’s 
Assistant,” and “ Every Man His Own 
Lawyer,” drew up the following notice 
for publication. 

“ To all whom it may concern : 

Be it known that on the evening of March 28, 
187-, a certain party left on a seat in the Broad 
Street Station, city of Philadelphia, a hand-bag 
supposed to contain valuables. Now, therefore, if 
said party shall at the time of reading this notifica- 
tion, or as soon thereafterward as may be possible, 
communicate by letter with the subscriber, describ- 
ing said bag, together with such other information 
as shall satisfy the subscriber aforesaid, that said 
respondent is the true and lawful owner thereof, the 
hand-bag before mentioned will be duly returned on 
the payment of the sum of five dollars, to cover 
expenses of advertising, etc. 

(Signed) Captain Jethro Flagg. 

Residence , Bixport , State of Maine.” 

Having finished this rather remarkable 
production, Captain Flagg read it aloud 


138 The Adventures of Tad . 

for the edification of Tad and Joe 
Whitney, who had just returned from the 
kitchen. 

“ ’Tain’t the way I'd put it, Uncle 
Jeth,” remarked the irrepressible Joe, 
with his mouth full of doughnut and a 
suspicious bunchiness about his pockets, 
as Captain Flagg laid down the paper 
with a look of conscious pride. “ Pd just 
say, ‘Found in Broad Street Station, Phil- 
adelphia, on such-and-such a night, a hand- 
bag. Prove property and pay charges. 
Address Captain Jethro Flagg, Bixport, 
Maine.’ ” 

Captain Flagg regarded his audacious 
nephew with a look in which mild indig- 
nation was blended with pity. “ Mebbe 
you would, Joseph,” he said with some 
severity, “ mebbe you would ; but, con- 
siderin’ that Pm jest a few years older’n 


The Adventures of Tad . 139 

you, I’ve took the liberty of doin’ this my 
own way.” 

“All right, Uncle Jeth,” returned the 
unabashed youth, “ if you don’t mind, / 
don’t, I’m sure. Say, Tad,” he remarked 
briskly, turning to that secretly amused 
youth, “ how’d you like me to go over to 
Miss Smith’s in the morning and speak a 
good word for you, eh ? ” 

“ I’d like you to go with me ever so 
much,” warmly replied Tad. He did not 
rely much upon Joe’s verbal recom- 
mendation, but he had a sort of feeling 
that the moral support of his presence 
would be a great deal. 

“ I’ll call for you right away after 
breakfast,” briefly returned Joe, with a 
twinkle in his eye, that, had Polly been 
present, she would have understood at 
once to mean mischief. But she was 


140 The Adventures of Tad. 

helping Mrs. Flagg with supper prepara- 
tions, and the captain was busy sending 
off the copies of his notice to a couple of 
city papers, so Tad had no warning 
as to Joe Whitney’s love of practical 
jokes. And all the way home Joe 
choked down certain little twinges of 
conscience, by representing to himself 
that it was “ only a little fun, anyway,” 
an excuse which I fancy has been com- 
mon to mischievous youth from the 
fabled stoning of the frogs down to the 
present days. 

Miss Smith was “ shooing” some hens 
out of her yard as Joe came by the house, 
and he at once volunteered his services 
with marked success. Sending the last 
hen shrieking across the street with a 
stick following closely at her tail-feathers, 
Joe closed the gate carefully. 


The Adventures of Tad . 14 1 

“ Oh, I say, Miss Smith,” he remarked, 
as he was turning away, “ I told Tad — 
the boy that Uncle Jeth brought home 
this trip — that I’d come over with him 
in the morning — he’s sort of bashful with 
strangers.” 

“ Nobody’d accuse you of anything of 
the kind, Joe Whitney,” was Miss Smith’s 
uncompromising answer. She was tall, 
thin, angular, and forty, with a good 
heart, but rather uncertain temper. And 
Joe was not a prime favorite with Miss 
Smith, by reason of his rather peculiar 
tendencies to mischief. 

“ Tad’s a real good boy, I guess,” said 
Joe, ignoring the personality, “but if he’s 
as hard of hearin’ as Uncle Jeth says — • 
for I heard him say Tad was deef as 
a haddock — you’ll have to holler like 
old boots to make him hear.” And, with- 


142 The Adventures of Tad. 

out waiting to be questioned farther, Joe 
scudded homeward. 

True to his promise, Joe was on hand 
bright and early on the following morn- 
ing. Captain Flagg had gone down to 
superintend the discharge of the Mary J.’s 
(cargo, and Mrs. Flagg was in the kitchen. 
Only Polly and Bounce followed the two 
bciys to the gate. 

Remember, now! no tricks — Joe,” 
caljled out Polly, warningly; “good luck to 
ydu Tad,” and she waved her hand encour- 
agingly, as the latter turned, with a very 
full heart, to look back at the old home 
whose occupants had given him so 
friendly a reception. 

“ Oh, isn’t this nice!” said Tad, enthu- 
siastically, as he drew in a great breath 
of the sweet, pure air, and looked at the 
quiet beauty of the landscape about him. 


H3 


The Adventures of Tad . 

Behind the village rose a range of spruce 
and pine covered hills. All round were 
fertile farms, and, in the eyes of the city- 
bred boy, Bixport and its surroundings 
seemed a sort of miniature Paradise. 

“ Not so bad,” patronizingly assented 
his companion. And as they crossed a 
small stone bridge which spanned a deep 
narrow stream, Joe stopped and peeped 
scrutinizingly over the rail, at the dark 
current beneath. 

“ I guess the water’s warm enough to 
try the trout — to-morrow’s Saturday, and 
if Miss Smith’ll let you off in the after- 
noon — if she hires you — what do you 
say, if we go trouting ? ” 

Say ! What would any boy say to such 
a proposition — particularly a boy who had 
never before been outside city walls. 
“ But maybe Miss Smith won’t hire me,” 


144 Adventures of Tad . 

suggested Tad, a little anxiously, after 
having expressed a rapturous readiness 
to accompany his newly made friend on 
a trouting tramp, or anywhere else that 
Joe might suggest. 

“ No trouble about that!” Joe replied, 
confidently; “ she’d take anybody Uncle 
Jeth recommended. You know she’s 
hard of hearing?” he added, carelessly. 

No, Tad did not know it. 

“ Fact!” said Joe, with a nod; “ and if I 
was you, I’d speak up good and loud, 
so ’s to let her see that you’ve got a voice 
of your own. The louder you holler, the 
better she’ll like you,” he added, with a 
slight twinge of his not over-sensitive 
conscience. For though it was true that 
Miss Smith was undeniably hard of 
hearing in her right ear, persons speaking 
a little above their ordinary tone had no 


The Adventures of Tad . 145 

particular difficulty in making themselves 
heard. 

Tad resolved that if this was the case, 
he would place himself without delay on 
the topmost round of Miss Smith’s affec- 
tions • and little more was said, as they 
had now arrived at their new place of 
destination. 

Miss Smith’s house was a high square- 
roofed building, sadly in need of painting, 
standing a little back from the road. It 
had one immense chimney at the very 
apex of the roof, and a low, old-fashioned 
piazza on the western front. Two great 
elm-trees bent protectingly over it ; an 
orchard of knarled apple-trees was in 
the rear, the vegetable garden at one 
side, and a small yard in front, where, as 
the two boys entered the gate, Miss 
Smith herself was raking away the dead 


146 The Adventures of Tad . 

leaves from a bed of upspringing cro- 
cuses. 

At their approach Miss Smith threw 
her sun-bonnet back, and, straightening 
up the rake-handle, stood stiffly erect, 
clasping it between her gloved hands, — 
something like the manner of a sentinel 
with his musket when not on active duty, 
— as she stared very hard at Tad, whose 
heart was beating furiously. 

“ So this is the boy,” she said, in a un- 
compromising sort of voice — her re- 
mark seemingly addressed to herself — 
“ humph ! ” 

This was by no means encourag- 
ing, and Tad’s hopes went down below 
zero with considerable rapidity. Joe 
stood a little at one side, with a 
shadowy look of expectancy on his 
freckled face. 


The Adventures of Tad. 147 

“ How old are you, Tad ? ” suddenly 
shrieked Miss Smith with such unex- 
pected energy that mechanically Tad 
clapped his hands to his ears. 

“ Fourteen — in my fifteenth year!” 
shouted Tad, whose face became quite 
crimson through the exertion. So did 
Joe’s, but from a different cause. 

Miss Smith started back involuntarily. 

“ Mercy on us ! ” she exclaimed. “ Why 
don’t you speak a little louder ! ” she 
added, in a sarcastic sort of roar. 

“ I said fourteen, marm — in my fif- 
teenth year ! ” Tad yelled, with the full 
power of his lungs; for, unfortunately he 
took her ironical suggestion in perfect 
good-faith. 

Miss Smith dropped the rake-handle, 
and sat down on the piazza steps. Joe, 
whose face was of a lively purple which 


148 The Adventures of Tad . 

extended to his ear-tips, began to edge 
toward the gate. 

“You won’t do, boy,” screamed Miss 
Smith, so shrilly that John Doty, who 
was ploughing in an adjoining field, 
stopped his oxen and looked wonder- 
ingly across at the “ old Smith place,” 
as it was locally called, while Samantha 
Nason, Miss Smith’s “hired help,” rushed 
bare-armed from the kitchen, with a 
vague impression that Miss Smith was 
in hysterics. 

“ I can’t hire any one as deaf as you 
are, and run the risk of breaking a blood- 
vessel, hollering to you,” continued Miss 
Smith in the same high key, as Tad stood 
confounded and despondent at her abrupt 
refusal; “besides, Pm not so hard of 
hearing as all that comes to, and your 
voice goes through my head like a knife 


The Adventures of Tad . 149 

— yah-h-h ! ” with which concluding ejac- 
ulation Miss Smith put her hands to the 
side of her pasteboard sun-bonnet, and 
shuddered. “ Why, I ain’t deaf, marm ! ” 
wonderingly exclaimed Tad, dropping his 
voice several octaves, “ and I wouldn’t 
have spoke so loud, only Joe said you 
was hard of hearing, and if he was me 
he’d speak up good and loud.” 

Joe could stand it no longer. With 
an explosive yell of laughter, he dodged 
through the gate, and, dropping in the 
green sward, at a safe distance, doubled 
himself up in an ecstasy of unseemly 
mirth. 

“Joe Whitney!” gasped Miss Smith, 
starting to her feet and shaking her finger 
threateningly in the direction of the 
prostrate practical joker as the truth of 
the matter flashed across her mind, “you 


150 The Adventures of Tad . 

see if your father don’t hear of this, 
sir ! ” 

But her indignation was always short- 
lived, and gradually a grim smile soft- 
ened the hard lines of her face, though 
the overshadowing head-gear hid it from 
Tad’s anxious gaze. 

“And so you want a place, eh?” she 
said abruptly, but not unkindly, as she 
turned her sharp gray eyes full upon Tad, 
who was looking reproachfully at Joe as, 
having risen, he cautiously advanced with- 
in earshot. 

“ If you please, marm,” was the respect- 
ful answer, and Tad looked pleadingly 
up at the maiden lady as he spoke. 
Something in his thin, pale face moved 
Miss Smith’s heart curiously. 

The boys who had worked for her 
from time to time had generally been 


The Adventures of Tad . 15 1 

unintelligent, brown-faced boys, with 
large appetites and a tendency to idle 
away as much time as they possibly 
could. 

“ He’s got a look I kind of like, though 
he is a pindling sort of a boy,” thought 
Miss Smith, rubbing her nose reflectively. 

“ Don’t you dare enter that gate, 
Joseph Whitney ! ” she exclaimed, with 
sudden energy, as Joe, with traces of 
his recent mirth on his features, edged 
himself along the front fence. 

“ No, marm,” responded Joe, in a voice 
suggestive of the deepest contrition. 
Affecting to be overcome with remorse- 
ful sorrow, he applied a small red- 
bordered cotton handkerchief to his eyes, 
and sobbed hysterically, after which, 
twisting it between his fingers, he feigned 
to wring tears of bitter grief from its folds. 


152 The Adventures of Tad . 

Turning her back upon the arch dis- 
sembler, Miss Smith proceeded to put 
Tad through a rapid course of question- 
ing. Did he smoke or swear ? Had he 
been vaccinated ? Were his father and 
mother living ? Had he been to school ? 
What church did he attend? — and a few 
other queries, of similar import. 

On all points, except that of church- 
going, Tad’s answers were very satisfac- 
tory; and Miss Smith graciously admitted 
that his lack of clothes was a tolerably 
reasonable excuse for his deficiency in 
that one respect. 

“ I guess you’ll do,” she finally said ; 
“ at least, I’m minded to try you, so you 
can come over and begin work early 
Monday morning.” 

“ Thank you, marm,” replied Tad, with 
a beaming face. “ I’ll be here early ; 


The Adventures of Tad . 153 

and though I’m kind of green, Miss 
Smith,” he added, earnestly, “ I’ll learn 
just as fast as ever I can, and work all the 
harder to make up.” 

“Well, we’ll see,” was the only reply. 
Miss Smith’s faith in juvenile promises 
had been rudely shattered by the frequent 
breakages that she had known in her 
experience. At the same time she felt 
rather drawn toward this pale-faced 
orphaned boy — though she would not 
have owned it, even to her own self. 

“ Don’t you let that Joe Whitney lead 
you into any mischief before you get 
back to Cap’n Flagg’s,” said Miss Smith, 
sharply, raising her voice for Joe’s edifi- 
cation, as Tad joined him outside the 
gate. 

“ Now, Miss Smith,” expostulated the 
injured youth, “ that isn’t fair!” The 


154 Adventures of Tad . 

maiden lad}^ smiled significantly, and, 
muttering something .about “ innocent 
Abigail,” resumed raking, while Tad, 
exultant over his future prospects, fore- 
bore to reproach his mischievous com- 
panion for the little episode I have nar- 
rated, and the two walked away together 
in the most amicable manner. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Who that was ever a boy has forgotten, 
or will forget, his first fishing ex- 
perience ? No matter whether it was 
angling for minnows from the wharf, with 
a pin-hook, catching “pumpkin seeds” 
from the mill-pond logs, or following up 
an alder-fringed brook in pursuit of trout, 
— he will be sure to remember it a great 
deal longer than he will the more impor- 
tant episodes of his later life. And I 
know one in particular who will always 
remember his boyish debut in the fishing 
line, — I mean Tad Thorne. 

It was the Saturday morning follow- 
ing Tad’s peculiar introduction to Miss 


i55 


156 The Adventures of Tad. 

Smith, and an unusually mild day for a 
New England April, which uncertain 
month is very apt to seem much like 
March, as to resemble a younger brother. 

Joe and Tad were digging bait in 
Deacon Whitney’s barn-yard; that is, Joe 
did the digging, while Tad placed the 
angle-worms in a round tin mustard-box, 
with a ventilating cover. 

“ There!” said Joe, straightening up, 
“that’s enough; and now, Tad, — you 
plaguey old tattle-tale !” 

Tad looked up in dire astonishment ; 
but the conclusion of Joe’s sentence was 
evidently not addressed to himself. 

It was churning-day at Deacon Whit- 
ney’s, and Joe’s eyes were fixed on the 
retreating form of Miss Smith’s hired 
help, who had come over to bespeak 
some buttermilk for Miss Smith’s pig. 


The Adventures of Tad. 157 

Samantha Nason was given to gossip, and 
Joe’s guilty conscience at once assured 
him that she had lost no time in telling 
the story of his late humorous per- 
formance to the Deacon, Mrs. Whitney, 
and his sister Nell. 

“ I guess we’d better be off,” remarked 
Joe, rather hastily; “and, instead of going 
out the front way, we’ll take a short cut 
down through the fields. You’ve got 
your lines all right?” 

Tad tapped his pocket significantly, and 
adjusted the tin box cover while Joe was 
putting the shovel back in the barn. 

“ Come on, then, Tad,” said his com- 
panion, with an uneasy glance at the back 
kitchen, which Tad did not quite under- 
stand, and with his words Joe dodged 
hastily behind the barn, followed by Tad; 
but, alas ! he was too late ! 


158 The Adventures of Tad . 

From the open kitchen-window came 
the cry, in his sister Nell’s voice : — 
“Jo-seph! — come right into the house 
— father wants you ! ” 

“ Darn it all ! ” muttered Joe, with a 
vindictive kick at the fence-rail; u now 
I’ve got to catch it.” 

“ Catch what ? ” wonderingly asked 
Tad, though with an intuitive suspicion 
that Joe was not referring to the pro- 
spective catch of trout. 

Joe did not reply, but, with a gloomy 
and vengeful expression, slunk into the 
barn by the small rear door, followed by 
his wondering companion. From behind 
the corn-crib Joe hastily pulled the 
bottom of an old pasteboard bandbox. 

“ Shove it up under my coat, behind — 
quick, Tad!” he exclaimed, in an agitated 
whisper, “ and then you go ahead to the 


The Adventures of Tad . 159 

brook — maybe I can get off bime by. 
It don’t hurt much of any, with this? 
added Joe, with a rather sickly smile, as 
he touched the small of his back signifi- 
cantly, “ only I’ve got to get a new piece 
of pasteboard — this is pretty nigh worn 
out.” 

“ Are you coming, Joseph ! ” 

The voice was Deacon Whitney’s, and 
sounded from the wood-shed close by. 
Tad fled ignominiously through the rear 
barn door, while Joe reluctantly obeyed 
the direful summons. Not that Deacon 
Whitney was unreasonably harsh or stern. 
Indeed, his wife said, “Joe’s thrashin’s 
hurt the Deacon a dretful sight mor’n 
they did Joe,” — which was doubtless true. 
The boy knew that his father loved him 
sincerely, and that the whippings were 
not given in anger, but from a sense of 


160 The Adventures of Tad . 

duty, and, though he would willingly have 
dispensed with them, Joe never cher- 
ished the slightest feelings of anger or 
resentment, after the first smart had 
passed away. 

Leaving Joe to his impending fate, 
Tad climbed the barn-yard fence, and 
with a jubilant feeling of gladness, which 
was only shaded by the occasional 
thought of his new friend’s disappoint- 
ment, made his way down across the 
Deacon’s meadows, to the brook. 

Tad knew nothing whatever about trout- 
fishing, as a matter of course. He had 
caught flounders and cunners from the 
piers, like most city boys, — but only those. 
However, he had a general idea of some 
of the requirements for the piscatorial 
art. So, with a very light heart, he 
followed the “ mill brook,” as it was 


The Adventures of Tad . 161 

called, through a field and an adjoining 
pasture, till he came to an alder swamp, 
where, having cut a pole, Tad sat himself 
down to shape and trim it. 

Well, it was indeed a lovely morning. 
The sky above him, flecked with drifting 
white clouds, was of the deepest blue, the 
air soft and spring-like, and the peaceful 
stillness unbroken only by the occasional 
cawing of crows or scream of a bluejay. 

Tad sat drinking in the beauty of the 
time and place, softly whistling to him- 
self as he worked, and thought over the 
many strange things that had come into 
his life in one short week, and all because 
an absent-minded man had left his trav- 
elling-satchel on the seat in a railroad 
station. 

“ Why, it just seems as though I’d been 
swopped off for somebody else,” he said, 


162 The Adventures of Tad . 

with a great sigh of thankfulness. And 
though, as might be expected, Tad 
Thorne’s religious knowledge was of the 
vaguest possible order, he somehow felt 
his heart going out thankfully to the 
Maker of such a beautiful world. 

“ There !” said Tad, as, finishing trim- 
ming the pole, he rose to his feet and 
brushed off the twigs, “ now for the trout.” 

The brook went dancing and laughing 
along at his side, with here and there a 
mimic water-fall, at the foot of which the 
foam and bubbles drifted about in frothy 
masses. 

With fingers trembling a little with 
excitement, Tad fastened his line, with its 
heavy sinker and hook large enough for 
black bass, to the end of-the pole. Ad- 
justing the bait, he threw his line into the 
deepest part of the pool. 


The Adventures of Tad . 163 

u I guess it isn’t a very good day for 
trout, anyway,” he murmured, after about 
five minutes of letting his line drift along 
in the current, and pulling it up again. 
But stop ! a little tug at the hook sent a 
thrill from his finger-tips to his toes ! 
With a jerk that would have landed a 
three-pound trout, Tad pulled out a chub 
about four inches long, which, with hook, 
line, and sinker, was immediately entan- 
gled in the alder branches over his head, 
requiring some ten minutes of perspiring 
effort to clear it. 

“ Trout ain’t so big as I thought for,” 
he said, half aloud, as he surveyed his 
prize. “ It must take an awful lot of ’em 
to make a mess,” Tad added, gravely, as 
he strung the small fish on a twig, and 
made his way a little further up-stream, 
in his ignorance passing over the deep 


164 The Adventures of Tad . 

pools and swelling eddies, which are gen- 
erally the lurking-places of the spotted 
beauties. 

By eleven o’clock, Tad, who had 
caught seven chubs, each about a finger 
in length, began to think that the charms 
of trouting had been considerably over- 
stated. It was rather early in the season 
for mosquitoes, yet there were enough 
of them about to make it quite lively for 
a fisherman. He had ascended the brook 
about two miles, and was tired and 
decidedly hungry ; and, moreover, he 
found himself right in the heart of what 
seemed to Tad’s unaccustomed eyes a 
boundless forest. 

Sitting down on a stump, Tad gazed 
about him, wondering at the solemn 
silence. Overhead, the wind sighed softly 
through the tops of the great pines. 


The Adventures of Tad. 165 

Red squirrels chittered in the spruce and 
hemlock trees, and a particularly venture- 
some one dropped a cone from an over- 
hanging bough, at his very feet, vanish- 
ing among the branches with wonder- 
ful swiftness, as Tad looked suddenly 
up. A partridge drummed in the dis- 
tance, and a woodchuck scampered 
rapidly through the underbrush at a 
little way off. 

“ I wonder if there are any bears in 
these woods,” thought Tad, with an un- 
comfortable thrill pervading his frame at 
the bear possibility. “ I’d either have to 
run, or climb a tree, if I saw one coming,” 
he thought, “ and, yet, what good would 
that do, where bears can climb and run 
rather better than most boys.” In a 
juvenile paper he had read how one 
“ boy hero,” thus surprised, had hastily 


1 66 The Adventures of Tad . 

lashed his open jack-knife to the end of 
a pole, and, boldly attacking the savage 
beast, had slain him by a fortunate thrust. 
Tad mechanically took out his own jack- 
knife, and opened the two-inch blade of 
the best cast-iron. 

“ I couldn’t do much with that,” he 
thought, “ but I suppose — ” 

“ G-r-r-r-r- ! ” 

A terrible growl, accompanied by a 
rustling in the thicket of small pines close 
at hand, sent Tad’s heart into his very 
throat ! There was not even time to 
splice the knife to the fish-pole, for the 
growl and rustling were repeated louder 
and nearer than before ! 

The hackneyed expression, “ to sell his 
life dearly,” flashed into Tad’s mind, and, 
bracing himself against the tree-stump, — 
somewhat in the 


The Adventures of Tad . 167 


“ Come one, come all — this rock shall fly 
From its firm base, as soon as I — ” 

attitude, — he held his open jack-knife in 
his hand, and awaited the overcoming 
monster ! 


CHAPTER IX. 


The spruce-bushes parted suddenly; 
but, instead of disclosing the form of a 
ferocious bear, nothing more formidable 
than the good-humored features of Joe 
Whitney, adorned with an expressive grin, 
was revealed. There were traces of 
recent tears on his freckled face ; yet 
mirth, beamed from his eye, and it was 
evident that the recent punishment had 
not had a very depressing effect on his 
animal spirits. 

“Thought I was a bear — didn’t you, 
Tad?” he remarked, laughing. And Tad, 
too much relieved at the prospect of 
companionship to feel very angry, an- 


168 


The Adventures of Tad . 169 

swered, with a feeble smile, that he 7vas 
kind of startled, and made haste to change 
the subject. 

“ I’ve got seven trout, but they’re awful 
small,” said Tad, producing his catch, 
with a rather disconsolate air. 

Joe started, whistled, and then roared. 

“ Why, you goosie!” he shouted, but 
so good-naturedly that it was impossible 
to be angry with him, “ those ain’t trout 
— they’re chubs ! ” 

Poor Tad felt tremendously mortified, 
but speedily forgot his mortification in 
real honest admiration of a string of 
trout — the largest of which would not 
weigh quite a quarter of a pound — that 
Joe brought out, together with an alder 
pole, from the thicket where he had 
enacted the bear. 

“ I dug some bait on the way, and 


170 The Adventures of Tad. 

caught these little fellows coming along,” 
explained Joe, as he held them up before 
his companion’s admiring gaze. 

“ Oh, wouldn't I like to catch just one 
trout!” sighed Tad; and Joe stoutly as- 
sured him not to worry — he’d put him 
up to catching more than one — perhaps 
half a dozen — before they returned. 

“ Did it hurt you very much ? ” inquired 
Tad, presently, with delicate reference to 
the cause of his companion’s detention. 

“ The pasteboard wasn’t quite low 
down enough,” said Joe, mournfully, and 
Tad asked no further questions. 

“Father didn’t flog me for just having 
a little fun with you and Miss Smith,” 
Joe went on, after a short pause, “ but 
because he said I as good as lied when 
I made her think that you was deaf, and 
you think that she was.” 


The Adventures of Tad . 17 1 

“Well,” returned Tad, hesitatingly, 
“I don’t know — you didn’t mean to say 
what wasn’t true, anyway.” 

“No,” said Joe, frankly, “I didn’t! I 
hate a square up and down lie as bad 
as the next one; but, come to study on it 
over, I guess we fellows don’t stop to 
think long enough, sometimes, and lie 
when we don’t mean to ; anyhow, I do, 
and I’m going to try and stop it.” 

This was quite an admission for Joe, 
who was generally very chary of acknowl- 
edging his faults. But he had begun to 
feel a strong boyish affection for his com- 
panion, and spoke more openly to him 
than he was in the habit of doing. 

“ But what made you so long getting 
here?” asked Tad, breaking the little 
silence that followed. 

“Why, after father — got through with 


172 The Adventures of Tad . 

me” returned Joe, while a humorous 
smile began to hover about his mouth, 
u he set me churning, and went off down 
town on an errand. Mother, she was sent 
for to go over to Mis’ Emory’s, all of a 
sudden, and, by gracious! ” said Joe, rub- 
bing his shoulders, “ I thought my arms 
would just unhinge out of the sockets 
before the butter came. Well, Nell, she 
took the butter down into the cellar 
kitchen to work it, and forgot to empt’ 
the churn (as mother always does), and 
whilst she was down there,” continued 
Joe, whose smile had begun to broaden, 
“ I saw father coming up the walk, so 
what does I do but get hold of the churn- 
dasher again. Father, he came in. ‘There, 
my son!’ he says, ‘I guess you’ve been 
punished enough — you can go now,’ and 
then he took the churn-dasher right out of 


The Adventures of Tad . 173 

my hand. If mother hasn’t got back, or 
if Nell don’t come up stairs,” added Joe, 
with an irrepressible snicker, “ I expect 
likely he’s churning buttermilk now.” 

As Tad knew rather less than a 
Hottentot regarding the mysteries of 
churning, the point of Joe’s little joke 
was not perfectly clear to his own mind. 
And perhaps, on second thought, Joe 
might have remembered that the tacit 
deception practised toward his father was 
not exactty in keeping with his professed 
penitence of a moment or two previous; 
for he made no attempt to enlighten his 
companion, but, taking up his pole, said, 
rather hastily, that he guessed they’d 
better be getting toward home, as it was 
considerably past dinner-time. 

About half-way down Mill brook were 
the ruins of an old saw-mill. Here, 


174 The Adventures of Tad. 

among the great timbers below^the dam, 
the water made deep eddies and shady 
nooks, where trout love to lie in the 
heat of the day. 

“ Throw in there, Tad,” said Joe, point- 
ing to a spot where the dark water rushed 
around the end of the broken flume like 
a mill-race. 

Tad secretly thought that any trout 
venturesome enough to trust himself in 
such a swift current would be swept 
down-stream in a twinkling. But he 
obeyed, and — 

Good gracious ! had a sturgeon or a 
young whale seized his bait ! His line 
went cutting through the dark waters, 
and the top of the alder pole bent omi- 
nously. 

Tad knew nothing about playing a 
trout; and if he had, it would have made 


The Adventures of Tad . 175 

no difference, owing to his primitive 
fishing tackle. He pulled vigorously ; 
so did the trout, and “snap!” went the 
end of the alder pole, leaving Tad in a 
mad frenzy of excitement, with three- 
fourths of the rod in his hands, dancing 
madly about on the rocks. 

Joe was equal to the situation. Drop- 
ping his own pole, he made a dive for 
the broken fragment, which was floating 
in sight. Gathering the slack line care- 
fully in his hands, a vigorous tug landed 
high and dry the largest trout ever 
caught in Mill brook. 

“There!” Joe exclaimed, as Tad re- 
garded his prize in an amazement too 
deep for words, “ you’ve caught the one 
real trout you wanted to — now, I guess 
we’d better be getting home, without 
doing any more fishing.” 


1 7 6 The Adventures of Tad, 

“ All right,” returned Tad, mournfully, 
“but you caught him, after all, Joe.” But 
Joe stoutly asserted that Tad hooked him 
first, while he — Joe — only helped to 
bring the big fish safe to land. And, in 
the discussion of the exciting episode, 
the walk home was accomplished in a 
surprisingly short time. 

Tad’s big trout was baked for supper, 
and it was generally agreed by the four 
who partook thereof that the flavor was 
particularly fine. Tad himself secretly 
thought he had never eaten anything so 
delicious in his whole life. But it is not 
unlikely that the knowledge that he him- 
self had furnished this important adjunct 
to the evening meal gave it an additional 
relish for Tad. 

By this time Tad had begun to feel 
very much at ease with these quiet, home- 


The Adventures of Tad. 177 

like people. As they gathered about the 
open fireplace, with its smouldering back- 
log, after the tea-things were cleared 
away, and the big kerosene-lamp was 
lighted, he opened his heart to their 
kindly questioning, and spoke freely of 
his past life. There was really little or 
nothing to keep back, for, as I have said, 
thanks to the memory of his mother’s 
teachings, and a natural uprightness of 
character, Tad had escaped the evil ways 
which a homeless, friendless boy is so 
apt to fall into, and, though he had faults 
in abundance, he was, on the whole, a 
more upright young fellow than many 
whose surroundings and advantages had 
been far more favorable than Tad’s. 

“ So you’re to begin ship’s duties to 
Miss Smith o’ Monday — eh, Tad?” re- 
marked the Captain, thoughtfully, to 


178 The Adventures of Tad. 

break a little silence which had fallen 
upon the group. 

“Yes, sir,” was the reply, “ and I do 
hope she’ll like me.” 

“ She’ll be hard to suit if she don’t,” 
returned Mrs. Flagg, clicking her needles 
emphatically together as they flashed in 
and out of the meshes of a blue yarn 
sock that she was knitting for the Cap- 
tain. For the good lady, whose heart 
was large enough to take in at least 
half a dozen motherless boys and girls, 
had begun to regard Tad with consider- 
able favor. 

“ I know she’ll like you,” said Polly, 
confidently, as she looked up from the 
fascinating pages of “Little Women,” 
which she was reading for the first time, 
while Bounce slumbered peacefully in 
her lap. 


i79 


The Adventures of Tad. 

“You just go on and do your duty unto 
Miss Smith accordin’ as you’d have it 
done to you, Tad,” remarked the Captain, 
oracularty, “ and you needn’t have no fears. 
Miss Smith,” continued Captain Flagg, 
with upraised finger to command atten- 
tion, “ is a female that’s had a tempest- 
uous v’y’ge in life, as it were, a-losing of 
every relation she had, which has gone 
to make her a bit cranky 5 but she’s good- 
hearted and God-fearin’, and once you 
get into her good books, you’re always 
there.” 

“ They say she’s got a han’sum prop- 
erty that her folks left her — some- 
wheres nigh ten thousan’ dollars,” Mrs. 
Flagg observed, in a voice indicative 
of considerable respect for the possessor 
of such wealth. For in Bixport the 
person with an unencumbered estate and 


180 The Adventures of Tad. 

a thousand dollars was “ well-to-do he 
who had five thousand was well off ; 
while the owner of ten thousand dollars 
was regarded in the light of a million- 


naire. 


CHAPTER X. 

On the following morning, when Tad, 
having opened his eyes to the glad sun- 
light which streamed in at the east win- 
dow of his little room, began to pull his 
drowsy ideas together, he remembered 
that it was Sunday. 

“ They’ll want me to go to church, and 
I don’t look decent,” thought Tad, dis- 
consolately, with a glance in the direction 
of the chair where he had placed his 
threadbare clothing the night before. 

But what was this ! A partly worn suit 
of serviceable tweed cloth, — the very 
counterpart of that in which Joe Whit- 
ney was arrayed when he sprang aboard 

181 


1 82 The Adventures of Tad . 

the Mary J., hung over the chair-back. 
And that was not all. In the chair itself 
lay all the other essentials to a boy’s 
toilet, neatly folded, even to a coarse 
white linen collar, a wisp of black neck- 
ribbon, a pair of but little used lace-up 
boots, and a “ second best” straw hat. 

Scarcely able to believe the evidence 
of his astonished eyes, Tad slipped out of 
bed and proceeded to investigate. On 
the top of the pile was a bit of paper, 
whereon, in an irregular boyish scrawl, 
were written the words, “ to Pay for 
makin Miss smith think you was deef 
and playing i was a bare. — J. Whitney.” 

After Tad had gone to bed on the 
previous evening, Mrs. Flagg slipped 
over to Deacon Whitney’s, and, ably sec- 
onded by the special pleadings of Joe, 
succeeded in enlisting the full sympathies 


The Adventures of Tad . 183 

of the family in behalf of shabbily dressed 
Tad. Joe’s wardrobe was overhauled, and 
a selection made, resulting in the surprise 
to Tad which I have mentioned. 

“Well, he’s what I call a nice-looking 
boy,” was Mrs. Flagg’s inward comment, 
as Tad, with hair neatly combed and 
face and hands scrubbed till they fairly 
shone, came shyly down stairs dressed in 
his new suit. 

Polly smiled upon him approvingly ; 
the Captain remarked that he didn’t know 
about taking such a dandified looking 
chap to church along of such plain- 
dressed folks as the Flagg family ; 
and Mrs. Flagg gave him a motherly 
kiss. 

“ That’s so much like Joe,” laughed 
Polly, as the display of the paper which 
Tad had found with his little gift aecessi- 


184 The Adventures of Tad . 

tated an explanation of Joe’s previous 
performances. 

“ Always remember, Tad,” counselled 
the Captain, with a grave shake of the 
head, as they sat down to the table to- 
gether, “ what Solomon says about a wise 
son makin’ a glad father — and — and he 
that is not warned thereby is not wise,” 
concluded Captain Flagg, who was some- 
times a little hazy in the correctness of 
his quotations. 

After breakfast, the Captain read a 
chapter from the New Testament aloud, 
making comments upon the text, for the 
edification of Tad and Polly, who 
listened with respectful attention. And 
then, after a while, at the summons of 
the rather unmusical church-bell, the 
whole family decorously made their way 
to the meeting-house, close by. 


The Adventures of Tad. 185 

The Bixporters were, generally speak- 
ing, a church-going people ; and, on the 
pleasant April morning of which I speak, 
the church was well filled. 

To Tad’s secret joy, Deacon Whitney’s 
pew was next Captain Flagg’s, and soon 
he had the extreme satisfaction of seeing 
Joe filing in ahead of his sister, followed 
by Mrs. Whitney and the Deacon. Joe 
sat at the extreme end, and thus the two 
boys were divided only by the slight 
partition between the pews. 

Joe greeted Tad with a wink, and, 
clasping his hands together, rolled his 
eyes upward, as though in rapturous 
astonishment at Tad’s festive appearance. 

“ I think you’re just as good as you can 
be, and I wish I. had something to give 
you l” whispered Tad, warmly. 

“ Poh, thaVs all right,” returned Joe, 


1 86 The Adventures of Tad . 

shrugging his shoulders carelessly ; and 
a whispered conversation ensued, which 
was only checked by the entrance of the 
minister ; whereat Joe, duly admonished 
by a poke of his sister’s fan, and a glance 
of mild rebuke from the Deacon, subsided 
into temporary attention, with his hands 
being plunged deeply into his pockets and 
his eyes fixed steadfastly upon good Mr. 
Allen. But, I am sorry to say, Joe’s 
thoughts w^ere by no means in keeping 
with the place. He was cherishing, and 
even planning, a dire revenge on uncon- 
scious Samantha Nason — who sat directly 
in front of him, in Miss Smith’s pew — for 
what he called her “ tattling” of the 
previous day. 

The service proceeded in the good 
old-fashioned way peculiar to country 
churches. All denominations worshipped 


The Adventures of Tad . 187 

under the same roof, and Mr. Allen’s 
words were but a plain and simple talk 
about the lessons taught by One who 
once walked upon earth, and spake as 
man never spake. There was very 
much in it that Tad perfectly understood, 
and, as he listened, a dim desire to 
fashion his young life after the teachings 
of the great Master began to take form in 
his mind. True, it was only embodied in 
the simple thought “ I’ll try and be a 
better boy,” yet from such beginnings 
oftentimes comes the real success of a 
true Christian life. And when the ser- 
mon closed, Tad felt that he should never 
be tired of listening to a minister who 
made things as plain as did Mr. Allen. 

Now, it was Samantha Nason’s invari- 
able habit to sit through the singing, 
while all the others rose. “ I work hard 


1 88 The Adventures of Tad . 

all the week, and I’m going to make 
Sunday my day of rest,” said Samantha 
once, a little defiantly, “an’ I guess I can 
worship the Lord as well settin’ down as 
standin’ up.” 

As the closing hymn was being sung, 
Tad noticed that Joe, who all through the 
service had kept his right hand persis- 
tently in his pocket, slowly withdrew it, 
though without removing his eyes from 
the pages of the hymn-book, and, seem- 
ingly holding something in his grasp, 
slipped his closed hand gently along on 
the ledge of the pew before him, till it 
was in close proximity to the back of 
Miss Nason’s neck. Then he stole a sly 
glance in the direction of his father and 
mother, who were too intent upon follow- 
ing the words of the hymn (in which 
their daughter Nellie’s voice uprose as 


The Adventures of Tad . 189 

clear and sweet as the notes of a wood- 
land bird) to notice the movements of 
their son. Slowly Joe’s fingers unclosed, 
and after a moment his hand stole back 
to a place beside its fellow. 

“ Now what is he up to ! ” thought 
Tad, warned by the shadowy grin on 
Joe’s features. And, following the direc- 
tion of his friend’s eyes, Tad’s unspoken 
question was answered. Clumsily clam- 
bering over the back of the prim ruffle 
about Miss Nason’s neck was a brown 
wood-beetle, as big as the end of Tad’s 
little finger. But before he could decide 
what to do, Miss Nason bounced to her 
feet with a stifled exclamation, and 
clutched frantically at her back hair. 
Unfortunately she caught hold of the 
innocent beetle itself, and, giving vent to 
a shrill scream, that made the rafters of 


190 The Adventures of Tad . 

the house ring, she threw it violently 
from her, to the great consternation of 
every one in the house, many of whom 
imagined Miss Nason had discovered a 
mouse in the pew. 

Mr. Allen pronounced the benediction 
and dismissed his congregation. And 
naughty Joe Whitne}^, holding his cap 
before his face, choked and gasped, in the 
agonies of suppressed laughter, all the 
way to the door. 


CHAPTER XI. 


The promise of April had given place 
to the fulfilments of June, filling the air 
with summer sunshine and beauty. Tad, 
under the supervision of Miss Smith, 
whose angular features were shaded by 
an immense garden-hat, was weeding the 
pansy-bed in the front yard. Miss Smith, 
who was a great flower-lover, made 
somewhat of a specialty of cultivating 
sweet-peas and pansies, which she gave 
away in their season with a liberal hand. 

You would hardly have recognized 
Tad in the brown-faced boy, in blue over- 
alls, bending lovingly over the quaint 
upturned flower-faces that peered into his 
own. He had taken to his new vocation 


192 The Adventures of Tad . 

with surprising readiness, and Miss Smith 
secretly congratulated herself on having 
at last found a boy after her own heart, 
though she seldom allowed her satisfac- 
tion to show itself in the form of words. 

“ Here comes that Forrest chap again,” 
muttered Miss Smith, discontentedly, as 
she glanced toward an elaborately dressed 
young man, who was sauntering along 
the elm-shaded street; “I wish he’d keep 
away about his own business, and not 
come idling round, taking your attention 
off’n your work.” 

For Mr. Paul Forrest was one of John 
Doty’s city boarders, who had scraped an 
acquaintance with Tad very soon after 
coming to Bixport. He seemed to take 
a singular interest in Tad, which, as he 
explained to Miss Smith, arose from the 
boy’s strong resemblance to his youngest 


The Adventures of Tad . 193 

and only brother, who had died a year 
previous — “ the last one, excepting my- 
self, of a family of seven,” he said, with 
a sad smile. For Mr. Forrest did a great 
deal of smiling, first and last ; and, 
curiously enough, Tad, in some vague 
way, was reminded by it of the genial Mr. 
Jones, whom he had met in Boston, 
before coming to Bixport. Of course, 
this was simply an absurd fancy on his 
part. The fraudulent Jones was a 
smooth-faced young man, with gold- 
tipped teeth; — while Mr. Paul Forrest 
sported a very glossy black moustache, that 
had a purplish tinge in certain lights, and 
the whitest and most even teeth that were 
ever seen outside a dentist’s establish- 
ment ; neither was the little bluish scar 
visible upon Mr. Forrest’s white forehead, 
that Tad had noticed upon the intellectual 


194 Tvfcg Adventures of Tad . 

brow of Jones. Yet, all the same, he 
often unconsciously connected the two in 
his mind, even while he laughed at his 
own folly in so doing. 

“Miss Smith, good morning — Tad> 
my boy, how are you ? ” exclaimed Mr. 
Forrest, with his effusive smile, as he 
lounged idly up the garden-path, and, 
with a coolness peculiar to himself, sat 
down on the edge of the garden piazza. 

Miss Smith stiffly acknowledged the 
greeting, and Tad, glancing up shyly, said 
he was pretty well. He was a little 
flattered by Mr. Forrest’s evident interest 
in himself — though he was not quite sure 
that he liked it, after all. He had nothing 
in common with the city-bred gentleman, 
and was rather puzzled to know what Mr. 
Forrest could have in common with him- 
self. 


The Adventures of Tad. 195 

u Come into the house after } t ou get 
through weeding, Tad ; I want you,” said 
Miss Smith, stalking past the unabashed 
Mr. Forrest, who sat quite at his ease, 
with the ivory head of his cane between 
his lips. 

“ Yes’m,” was the meek reply, and 
Tad silently continued his work, wishing 
that Mr. Forrest would go, for he was 
very well aware that Miss Smith did not 
approve at all of the gentleman’s frequent 
visitations. 

In a small village like Bixport, where 
everybody’s business is public property, 
the story of Tad and his travelling-satchel 
was generally known, as w r as also the fact 
that no attention had ever been paid to 
Captain Flagg’s advertisement. So it was 
not strange that Mr. Forrest should be in 
possession of the same knowledge. He 


196 The Adventures of Tad . 

had referred to the matter casually in 
conversation with Tad, declaring that it 
was a mighty interesting incident in real 
life — come, now ! 

“ So you never opened the little 
alligator-skin satchel, to see what was in 
it — eh, Tad?” suddenly asked Mr. 
Forrest, after a short pause. 

“ Why, no, sir ! I haven’t a key — 
and, if I had, I don’t think it would 
be just the thing, either,” replied Tad, a 
little surprised at the unexpected ques- 
tion. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” remarked Mr. 
Forrest, coolly ; “ there might be some- 
thing in it that would give you a clew 
to the real owner.” 

“ That’s true,” murmured Tad, who had 
never thought of this before. 

“ I think it’s your duty to try and open 


The Adventures of Tad . 197 

it,” continued Mr. Forrest, seeing the im- 
pression he had made. 

“ But I couldn’t without breaking the 
lock, and I should not like to do that,” 
Tad answered, with a perplexed look. 

“ I suppose you keep it in your posses- 
sion?” inquired Mr. Forrest, carelessly; 
and Tad nodded. “Then, why not bring 
the bag over to my room this evening — 
I dare say some of my keys will unlock 
it,” suggested the gentleman, blandly. 

“ I’ll think about it, sir,” replied Tad, 
cautiously, for he was not quite sure that 
it would be just the right thing to do ; 
and, moreover, he wanted to ask the 
advice of Miss Smith, in whose good 
judgment Tad had the firmest confidence, 
before taking any such decisive step. 

“ If there’d been anything of much 
value in it,” Mr. Forrest observed, watch- 


198 The Adventures of Tad . 

ing Tad closely, “ the owner would have 
been likely to have advertised in the city 
papers.” 

“Yes,” returned Tad, “but then we 
shouldn’t be any the wiser for that, down 
here in Bixport, for about the only city 
papers that come here are the Congrega- 
tionalist and the New England Farmer .” 

“By George ! ” said Mr. Forrest, with 
a gay laugh, “ my curiosity is consider- 
ably excited by that mysterious satchel. 
Look here, Tad ! ” he continued, with an 
extravagant display of teeth, “ I’m one of 
the queerest fellows ever } T ou saw, and 
I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you a 
clean new ten-dollar bill for the bag, 
without seeing it — unknown contents 
and all ; what do you say ? ” 

“ Couldn’t think of it, sir I ” Tad re- 
plied, quietly. 


The Adventni'es of Tad . 199 

“ Fifteen ? Well,” he continued, gayly, 
as Tad shook his head resolutely, “ what 
will you take ? Twenty ? Twenty- 
five ? ” 

“ Why, it isn’t mine to sell, sir,” was 
the same grave reply, and Mr. Forrest 
muttered something under his moustache 
in reference to u an obstinate young fool,” 
which Tad did not quite catch. 

Further conversation on the subject 
was prevented by the sudden appearance 
of Polly Flagg, accompanied by Joe 
Whitney, on her way to school. Polly, 
who was a special favorite with Miss 
Smith, had permission to pick all the 
flowers she wanted. So, with a smile and 
nod to Tad, she began culling a little 
bouquet of purple pansies for Miss Bur- 
bank^ her teacher ; while Joe, with one 
hand in his pocket, calmly munched a 


200 The Adventures of Tad . 

huge winter Baldwin, which he held in 
the other. 

“ Have a bite, Mr. Forrest ? ” asked Joe, 
advancing the unbitten side of the apple, 
with easy familiarity. 

To please the youth, Mr. Forrest con- 
descendingly and unthinkingly set his 
teeth in a portion of the tempting fruit. 
Joe jerked away his hand suddenly, for 
some reason or other, and stood appar- 
ently transfixed with astonishment as he 
did so, for inserted in the apple which he 
held was left a very nice set of false 
teeth ! 

With an inarticulate exclamation, Mr. 
Forrest grasped apple and all, and van- 
ished through the gate, leaving a small 
party of three convulsed with laughter, 
which was only checked by the appear- 
ance of Miss Smith, who condescended to 


The Adventures of Tad . 201 

smile grimly when she heard of the 
unfortunate occurrence. 

“ False teeth, yes! — and, likely enough, 
that moustache of his is false, too,” 
sharply said the lady, who had taken an 
unaccountable dislike to Mr. Forrest from 
the very first time she had laid eyes on 
him. A suggestion which, taken in con- 
nection with the conversation of a few 
minutes before, made Tad unusually 
thoughtful for the rest of the day. 

“ If you take that rid’cule over to John 
Doty’s, you’re a bigger fool than I think 
for,” was Miss Smith’s tart remark, when 
Tad spoke to her on the subject. “ I’m 
free to confess,” she continued, after a 
little, “that it mightn’t be such a bad plan 
to open the bag, and see what’s in it — 
that is, if Cap’n Flagg thinks it’s the right 
thing to do,” she added, for she had con- 


202 The Adventures of Tad . 

siderable respect for the Captain’s judg- 
ment. But the Captain was away on 
a coasting trip; so the matter had to be 
deferred until his return, rather to the 
disappointment of Miss Smith, whose 
secret curiosity as to the contents of the 
bag had something to do with her sug- 
gestion. 

So, when Tad again saw Mr. Forrest, 
he told him that he guessed he wouldn’t 
do anything about opening the satchel, 
for a while longer at least — perhaps he 
might see it advertised in some of the 
city papers yet, if he could only get hold 
of the right one. 

Mr. Forrest smiled unpleasantly, and 
said, rather sneeringly, that he had kept 
run of the city papers as constantly as 
most people, and, to his certain knowl- 
edge, no such advertisement had ever 


The Adventures of Tad . 203 

been published, nor would there ever be, 
as the owner was doubtless dead, or had 
long since given up the search of his lost 
property. Of course, Tad would do as 
he liked — it was nothing to him; and 
Tad noticed a decided chill in the tone 
and manner of the usually genial Forrest, 
as he turned away. 

And yet, in spite of the gentleman’s 
assertions as to the matter of the adver- 
tisement, he carried in his inside coat- 
pocket a copy of a Boston Jourfial , 
which contained a notice of considerable 
importance to Tad Thorne, could he but 
have known it. 


CHAPTER XII. 


It was a lovely Saturday afternoon, 
and, of course, a half-holiday for Bixport 
youth. Tad had been very busy all the 
forenoon, as Mr. and Mrs. Mason of 
Boston had arrived the night before, and 
taken the spare room. They were very 
wealthy people, who had boarded with 
Miss Smith for three successive summers, 
finding in the quiet of this secluded 
village an enjoyment that no crowded 
watering-place could give them. Tad 
had seen very little of them, and only 
noticed that the lady was rather stout and 
pleasant-faced, while the gentleman was 
also stout and rather jolly. The name 


204 


The Adventures of Tad . 205 

was curiously familiar, though, and he 
racked his brain in vain to think where 
he had heard it. 

Tad always had his liberty on Saturday 
afternoon, and, borrowing Mr. Kenneth’s 
big flat-bottomed boat, he had invited 
Joe Whitney, Polly Flagg, and the dog 
Bounce, to go after lilies in Bixport 
pond — a beautiful sheet of water, not far 
from Deacon Whitney’s. 

“ There’s Mr. Mason and his wife 
already,” said Polly, glancing ashore ; 
“ they always put up some lunch and 
start for the pond just as soon as they get 
fairly settled at Miss Smith’s.” 

“ And there are those two Boston girls 
that are boarding at widow Simpson’s 
— with Mr. Forrest,” added Joe, with a 
slight chuckle, as he remembered the 
bitten apple. 


20 6 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ Come ashore and have some lunch, 
young folks,” called Mr. Mason, who was 
a great favorite in Bixport, because, as 
they said, “ he nor his wife put on city 
airs — if they were worth half a million 
dollars.” 

So the boat was headed for the shore, 
and, as it touched the beach, Polly, with 
both hands full of loner-stemmed fragrant 

o o 

treasures, jumped ashore — followed, 
more slowly, by Tad and Joe. 

“John, dear, 'will you look at those 
lovely lilies!” exclaimed Mrs. Mason; 
and, at the sound of her voice, it all came 
back to Tad — the Pullman car, and the 
night journey to Boston behind Mrs. John 
G. Mason’s chair, sheltered by Mrs. John 
G. Mason’s cloak. How funny it was, to 
be sure ! 

The little party gathered round the 


The Adventures of Tad . 207 

lunch-basket, under the shade of some 
delightfully tall pines, and began to dis- 
cuss a rather substantial lunch. At 
a little distance were the Misses Baker, 
two very nice girls of culture, from 
Boston — and, having said this, it is 
perhaps unnecessary to add that the 
younger wore eye-glasses, and had 
brought a volume of Ruskin for light 
reading, while her sister, with artistic 
tendencies, was seated, under a large 
white umbrella, before an easel, making 
a sketch of Bixport pond in oils. Mr. 
Forrest, who represented himself as of one 
of the first families of New York, was 
most elaborately dressed in a cool and 
becoming boating suit of cream-colored 
flannel; and when he arose from a very 
green mossy log on which he had been 
sitting, the effect of color was so striking 


2 o 8 The Adventures of Tad . 

as to draw an audible snort from the 
observant Joe Whitney. 

“ Say, Mr. Forrest,” he called, with his 
mouth full of sandwich, “ I wouldn’t set 
down much in them white clo’s, — 
they’re all streaked up behind now ; 
besides, there’s lots of bumble-bee’s-nests 
round here.” 

Mr. Forrest, who had turned very red, 
did not receive the suggestion in a kindly 
spirit. 

“Young man,” he said, loftily, “allow 
me to say that your coarse familiarity is 
very unpleasant — have the goodness to 
attend to your own affairs.” 

“ All right,” replied Joe, with a wink 
of exquisite meaning directed to Polly, 
who shook her head at him warning^, 
and, after another attack on the eatables, 
he sat in silent meditation. 


The Adventures of Tad . 209 

“ Got a pin, Polly?” he asked, in a low 
tone of voice, as he wiped a lingering 
crumb or two from his lips with his coat- 
sleeve. 

“ What do you want of it ? ” sus- 
piciously returned Polly. 

“Why! — I want it!” was the unsatis- 
factory reply. 

“ Here’s one, Joe,” said Mr. Mason, 
with, I regret to say, a somewhat humor- 
ous twinkle in his eye. 

“Now, John!” expostulated his wife, as 
Joe, taking it, rose to his feet and strolled 
off, “what made you? — you hnovj that 
boy is always up to some kind of mis- 
chief.” 

But Mr. Mason, who had stretched 
himself at ease on the green sward, with 
his straw hat over his face, seemed sud- 
denly to have fallen into a deep sleep, 


210 The Adventures of Tad . 

not unpunctuated by an occasional snore ; 
so Mrs. Mason, leaning back against a 
tree-trunk, fanned herself languidly, and 
chatted with Poll} 7 , who was making 
a lily-wreath for her shade-hat, while 
Bounce lay looking on with lazy interest. 
Tad, hugging his knees, which were 
drawn nearly up to his chin, sat a little 
distance off, thinking how singular it was 
that, in a big world, he should again have 
met the owner of the fur cloak, and won- 
dering what she would say if she knew 
the part she had played in helping him 
along on his w T ay to Bixport. 

It was one of those delightful summer 
afternoons when one feels disinclined to 
do anything but dream away the idle 
hours. The clear unruffled surface of 
Bixport pond reflected the drifting white 
clouds overhead, and the tall whispering 


The Adve?itures of Tad . 21 1 

pines which bent over its margin, as 
faithfully as some great mirror. Far off, 
at the other end, a solitary loon sent out 
his quavering cry from time to time, 
while now and then the shrill note of the 
locust cut through the warmth and 
stillness of the air with monotonous per- 
sistency. The murmur of Mr. Forrest’s 
voice, as that gentleman, unmindful of 
Joe’s warning, reclined gracefully at Miss 
Baker’s feet, reached Tad’s ears. 

“ Yes, Miss Baker,” he was saying, “I 
am passionately fond of art, and, as what’s- 
his-name says, the study of the beautiful 
is a — o-w-w-w-w ! 0I1 ! oh ! ” 

The wild whoop with which Mr. For- 
rest unexpectedly ended his aesthetic 
remarks startled the young lady so much 
that she dropped her palette, paint side 
down, full upon Mr. Forrest’s upturned 


212 The Adventures of Tcid . 

face, while he, springing wildly to his 
feet, began thrashing his person with both 
hands, shouting “Shoo! shoo!” as he 
madly danced about the green sward ! 

“ I beg your pardon, ladies,” he hastily 
exclaimed, as both the Misses Baker 
stared at him aghast, “ but I fear there is 
a bee’s nest in the vicinity ; I have just 
been severely stung by one — ” But his 
explanation was brought to an abrupt 
close by a singular noise, which — a seem- 
ing combination of stifled scream, re- 
pressed gasp, and smothered laughter — 
proceeded from Joe Whitney, who, with 
a very red face and a long alder stick, in 
the end of which was a pin, had suddenly 
and silently rejoined Tad and Polly. 

“You — you young villain!” wrath- 
fully ejaculated Mr. Forrest, as the truth 
suddenly flashed across his mind, and, 


The Adventui'es of Tad . 213 

with this exclamation, he made a sudden 
dive in Joe’s direction ; but the wary 
youth, evading his grasp, dodged under 
his outstretched arm with a hilarious 
war-whoop, and disappeared among the 
trees. 

Mr. Forrest was very angry, particu- 
larly when he discovered that a smear of 
pea-green paint extended from his fore- 
head downward across his nose to his 
cheek, though he made a pretence of 
laughing it off as a good joke. 

“ Just dip my handkerchief in the pond- 
water, Tad, and wipe this paint off my 
face, will you,” he said, throwing it to 
Tad, who, taking it in silence, scrubbed 
down Mr. Forrest’s face till it was tol- 
erably clear. But with the paint was 
a chalky substance from over Mr. For- 
rest’s right eyebrow, and, too late, that 


214 ■ The Adventures of Tad . 

gentleman clapped his hand to his fore- 
head, with a slight exclamation. Tad’s 
sharp eyes detected a small bluish scar 
on Mr. Forrest’s temple, that had been 
skilfully hidden by a touch of French 
chalk. 

“ How are you, Jones” thought Tad, 
with a little twinge of excitement, which 
he carefully concealed, handing back the 
handkerchief with apparent unconscious- 
ness of the sharp glance given him by the 
city-bred gentleman, who clapped on his 
straw hat with considerable haste. 

Tad then rejoined Polly, who had risen 
to her feet, and, after talking a little with 
the amused Mr. Mason, the two made 
their way slowly homeward by the shady 
wood-road that followed the pond shore 
for quite a distance. 

“ Why, where is Bounce ? ” cried 


The Adventures of Tad . 215 

Polly, wondering what made Tad so un- 
usually silent. 44 Here, Bounce ! Bounce!” 
Bounce had grown into quite a sturdy, 
good-natured pup, with a gruff voice, and 
a propensity for picking up and carrying 
off any stray article that he found lying 
about. Sometimes it was Polly’s slipper, 
or perhaps one of Mrs. Flagg’s dish- 
towels ; but, curiously enough, he never 
tore or destroyed anything of the kind. 

So, as, in answer to Polly’s call, Bounce 
presently came rushing toward them 
through the bushes, Polly was not sur- 
prised at seeing something in his mouth. 

44 Naughty Bounce!” said Polly, with 
make-believe severity; 44 bring it here this 
moment, sir.” 

Bounce obeyed at once. 

44 Why, it’s a folded newspaper, with 
Mr. Forrest’s name on the edge,” she 


2i6 The Adventures of Tad . 

exclaimed, as she took it from between 
Bounce’s white teeth. “ He must have 
dropped it out of his pocket when he 
jumped up so quick,” added Polly, with 
a merry laugh, in which Tad, roused from 
his abstraction by the little incident, at 
once joined. 

“ You’ll see Mr. Forrest before I do, 
Tad,” Polly continued, as she extended 
the newspaper ; “ I wish you’d give it to 
him. — Somehow, I don’t like him one 
bit.” 

“ All right,” replied Tad, taking the 
paper, “ I’ll hand it to him when I see 
him ; though / don’t fancy him much 
myself. But I wonder where on earth 
Joe is !” he added, suddenly noticing the 
prolonged absence of his friend and 
crony. 

“Joseph is here, son of the pale-face 1 ” 


The Adventures of Tad . 217 

suddenly responded a guttural voice from 
the roadside, “but his feet no longer 
tread the paths of peace, for they are set 
upon the war-path, and before another 
moon the scalp of the Forrest chieftain 
shall dangle in his wigwam ! ” 

With this terrible announcement, a 
figure attired in a blanket shawl, with 
dishevelled hair hanging about his face, 
which was adorned with alternate stripes 
of crimson, blue, and yellow, burst forth 
from the bushes, uttering a fiendish and 
blood-curdling yell. He shook wildly 
aloft a white linen umbrella with one 
hand, while in the other was an article 
held in the manner of an Indian spear, 
which Tad and Polly simultaneously rec- 
ognized as the youngest Miss Baker’s 
patent folding easel. After allowing Mr. 
Forrest’s anger a sufficient time to cool, 


218 The Adventures of Tad . 

Joe had wandered back to the shore, 
where he was at once chartered by Miss 
Baker to carry her shawl and sketching 
utensils back to her boarding-place, while 
Mr. Forrest took the little party for a row 
on the pond. The possession of such 
available material was too great a temp- 
tation for Joe, who had at once utilized 
them, with the effect I have just described. 

“ Ha ! Ha ! ” cried the Indian brave, 
executing a fantastic war-dance in the 
middle of the road, while Bounce barked, 
and his two friends regarded his paint- 
smeared face in astonishment, “ does the 
daughter of the Lenni Lenape shrink 
back ? Let her have no fear — the 
flower of his tribe wars not upon help- 
less women, nor does he fear even 
though the dread Avenger be at his 
heels ! ” Perhaps the red man’s utter- 


The Adventures of Tad. 219 

ance would have been less boastful had 
he known that the Avenger, in the unex- 
pected person of Deacon Whitney, was 
so close at hand. The Deacon, having 
been hunting up a stray steer along the 
pond shore, had suddenly turned a bend 
in the wood-road in time to recognize 
his erratic son’s voice. 

For one brief moment, Deacon Whit- 
ney gazed at Joe’s grotesque garb in 
silent horror. And then, with a stride 
which brought him within reach, he 
seized the red man’s ear with consider- 
able emphasis. 

“ The flower of the tribe will just 
stop this tomfoolery, an’ march along 
home with the Avenger,” remarked the 
Deacon, with grim pleasantry; and the 
youthful chieftain, in all the glory of his 
trappings and war-paint, was meekly led 


220 The Adventures of Tad . 

along by the ear in the direction of the 
paternal wigwam, to the unsmotherable 
delight of about twenty Bixport boys who 
were playing base-ball on the green, near 
the Deacon’s house. 

Meanwhile, Tad and Polly made their 
way home, more slowly. By this time, 
the two had become great friends, and 
were never at a loss for conversation 
while together. Tad told his companion 
all about his life at Miss Smith’s. — How 
Samantha had taught him to milk Sukey, 
the Jersey cow, and even instructed him 
in the art of grooming White-face, the 
family horse, that was said to be about 
twenty-five years old. Then, Miss Smith 
had shown him all about planting the 
vegetable garden, and weeding flower- 
beds. She told Samantha (who told 
Tad) that he was by all odds the best 


The Adventures of Tad . 221 

help that had ever worked for her, and, 
considering he was a hoy, — Miss Smith 
cherishing a rooted antipathy to the gen- 
erality of boys, — she wasn’t so sure but 
that she could say that she almost liked 
him. 

“ I’m sure I like her ever so much,” 
added Tad, in a rather unusual burst of 
confidence, “ and folks that think she is 
grumpy and cross don’t know her — that’s 
all.” 

“ Perhaps she’ll adopt you some day, 
Tad,” suggested Polly, laughing a little 
at the idea of grim-visaged Miss Smith 
with an adopted son. 

“ I wish she wpuld,” returned Tad, 
with simple earnestness; “I’d give any- 
thing to have some one kind er love me, 
like your folks do you — even though 
they wasn’t my very own. I tell you, 


222 The Adventures of Tad . 

Polly,” said Tad, sorrowfully, “ this hav- 
ing to drift round without any home, and 
nobody to care what happens to you, 
isn’t the nicest thing in the world.” 

Polly was about returning a sympa- 
thizing answer; but, catching a glimpse of 
Captain Flagg rolling heavily along in 
the distance, Tad and his confidences 
were momentarily forgotten. 

“ There’s father ! ” she exclaimed, de- 
lightedly, and, with Bounce barking at 
her heels, Polly ran fleetly down the 
plank sidewalk to meet him. 

“ She's got somebody,” thought Tad, 
wistfully, and then with a little sigh he 
turned into Miss Smith’s neatly kept 
flower-yard, where the pansies and old- 
fashioned garden-lilies seemed to nod 
him a friendly welcome. 

There was nothing particular for him 


223 


The Adventures of Tad. 

to do, and, sitting down on the edge of 
the piazza, Tad fell into a brown study. 
He was a good deal perplexed as to 
whether he had better confide his sus- 
picions that Mr. Forrest was also Mr. 
Jones, and presumably Mr. Edwards also, 
to Miss Smith and Captain Flagg, or wait 
till he had more positive proof. 

“ My word wouldn’t go very far against 
his smooth tongue,” thought Tad, as he 
mechanically unfolded the copy of the 
paper that had probably dropped from 
the pocket of the subject of his medita- 
tions, and which Tad had been holding in 
his hands all the while. 

“ Why, what ! It can’t be ! ” Tad 
exclaimed, all at once, as his eye fell upon 
a conspicuously printed notice, headed, 
“Five Hundred Dollars Reward!!” 
And, the better to take in the meaning, 


224 The AcZventu?'es of Tad . 

he read it over again aloud. Following 
the offered reward was this announce- 
ment : — 

The above sum will be paid, and no questions 
asked, for the return of a small alligator-skin 
satchel with nickel-plated trimmings and lock, to- 
gether with contents of the same. Said satchel was 
left, by mistake, in one of the seats of the Broad 
Street Station, Philadelphia, the evening of March 
28, 187-, and was taken therefrom by a boy of about 
fourteen, shabbily dressed, with dark hair and eyes. 

Address, or call upon, J. H. A., 1947 Oldtown 
Street, Boston, Mass. 

“Well, / should say it could be! ” said 
the sharp voice of Miss Smith, who, hav- 
ing heard Tad’s exclamation, had stepped 
out on the piazza, unnoticed by Tad. 

“ Where’d this paper come from ! ” she 
demanded, as she took it from Tad’s 
hand. 

Tad explained briefly. 

“ First good I ever knew come of 







. 


' 

• t 

■ 




















































































































































































































































* • • 




\ 
















The Adventures of Tad . 225 

keeping a dog ! ” curtly remarked Miss 
Smith. “Humph!” continued the lady, 
now somewhat excited, “ here’s that fel- 
low’s name — if his name is Forrest — on 
the margin, and the notice has got a lead- 
pencil mark drawn round it ! Don’t that 
make it all plain enough ? ” 

“ All what, ma’am ? ” meekly returned 
Tad. 

“ Why, that this Mr. Forrest must have 
seen the notice, and kep’ it to himself, 
thinking that perhaps he could wheedle 
you out of the bag for little or nothing, 
and then get a big reward for returnin’ 
it,” replied Miss Smith, with a triumphant 
snap of her gray eyes. 

“ I think there’s more to it than that, 
Miss Smith,” said Tad, rising to his feet. 
“ I think he’s the same fellow who tried 
so hard to get hold of it in Boston. You 


226 The Adventures of Tad . 

see, ma’am,” continued Tad, meekly, “I 
ain’t so quick as some, but I’ve studied 
it out kind of like this. He somehow 
found out, in the first place, that the tall 
gentleman who owns it had jewelry, or 
whatever it is, worth ever so much 
money, in his satchel, and just followed 
on after him, to get a chance to grab it. 
Then /got hold of it, and ever since he’s 
been doggin’ me . He’s got a moustache, 
and bran’-new teeth, and his voice is 
a little different; but this afternoon I 
found out something that makes me 
pretty sure I’m right.” And then Tad 
told Miss Smith about the little blue scar, 
that he had so unexpectedly discovered. 

“ Well, Tad,” observed Miss Smith, 
after a short astonished pause, “you’re 
a smarter boy than / ever thought you 
was, I’m free to confess. The — the — 


The Adventures of Tad . 227 

deceptive critter ! ” And, for a moment 
or two, it really seemed as though Miss 
Smith was determined to sally forth, and, 
single-handed, capture Mr. Forrest, and 
drag him into the presence of Square 
Martin, the Bixport justice of the peace, 
there to denounce him as a fraud of the 
first water. 

But, upon cooler reflection, she saw 
that, in reality, there was no visible proof 
of any such charge, further than Tad’s 
own word. Even Captain Flagg or 
Polly would hardly have recognized, in 
the elegantly dressed gentleman with 
a silky black moustache, the smooth- 
faced, shabby sharper who had tried 
unsuccessfully to steal Captain Flagg’s 
money and papers on Commercial Wharf. 

“ Give a rogue rope enough, and he’s 
sure to hang himself ; so I guess we won’t 


228 The Adventures of Tad. 

t 

say anything for a spell longer,” finally 
said Miss Smith, to Tad’s great gratifica- 
tion. 

But the good lady immediately sat 
down and wrote a letter to “J. H. A.” in 
relation to the satchel, and afterward 
posted it with her own hands. Further- 
more, she had a new lock put on each of 
the outer doors, and even went so far as 
to have Tad clean and load an old flint- 
lock musket, that had done good service 
at Bunker Hill, which, to Samantha 
Nason’s great horror, she kept standing 
at the head of her bed. 

“ I feel it in my bones that the fellow’ll 
make one more trial for that satchel,” she 
said, oracularly, “ for he knows that 
what’s in it is well worth runnin’ a big 
risk for ; but, if he’s aware when he’s well 
off, he better keep away ! ” 


The Adventures of Tad . 229 

Three days passed, and then Miss 
Smith received an answer, to the effect 
that “ J. H. AT would be in Bixport on 
the following day, and would do himself 
the honor of calling upon Miss Smith, at 
her residence, in the evening. 

“ Things is coming to a climax, Tad,” 
said Miss Smith, carefully tucking the 
letter away in a pigeon-hole of the old- 
fashioned secretary in the front sitting- 
room, “ and I guess you’ll get your five 
hundred dollars reward, after all , and 
Edwards, or whatever his name is, will 
have his trouble for his pains.” 

Five hundred dollars ! Tad turned 
from red to white, and white to red again. 
He thought to himself that when he held 
the money in his hands he would believe 
it — but not till then ! 

The satchel had been placed in a sec- 


230 The Adventures of Tad . 

retary drawer, for safe keeping. Miss 
Smith unlocked the drawer, to make sure 
that it was safe. Then she .held it 
thoughtfully up by the handle. 

“ I’m free to confess I’m dretful curi- 
ous to know what’s inside,” she remarked, 
as she held it at her ear, and shook it 
vigorously. “ There’s papers, for one 
thing, — I hear ’em rustle, — and some- 
thing like a box,” she continued; “ but 
never mind, Tad — we’ll know all about 
it to-morrow night.” Thus saying, she 
replaced the satchel, locked the drawer, 
and dropped the key into her pocket, 
happily unconscious that a sharp pair of 
eyes — whose owner was hidden from the 
view of any chance passer-by by a thick 
clump of lilacs before the house — had 
been watching her every movement from 
without, through the half-closed blinds. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The curtains were pulled down, the 
big kerosene-lamp lighted, and Miss 
Smith, at the head of the dining-room 
table, was pouring out the tea, on the 
evening when the arrival of J. H. A. was 
expected. 

“ I s’pose the stage’ll be late ; it always 
is when there’s anything of importance 
on hand,” observed Miss Smith, glancing 
discontentedly at the pale-faced clock, 
whose hands pointed to the hour of seven. 

“ Dear me, I hope not ! ” said Mrs. 
Mason ; “ for, to tell the truth, ever since 
I’ve heard about Tad and the mysterious 
satchel, I have been fairly devoured with 
curiosity to know its contents.” 


231 


232 The Adventures of Tad. 

“ Of course. Miss Smith, you’ve got the 
article safely under lock and key,” Mr. 
Mason remarked, helping himself to a 
biscuit as he spoke.' 

“ Locked up in the secretary drawer, 
and the key’s in my pocket,” returned 
Miss Smith. Had the old-fashioned sec- 
retary been a burglar-proof safe, with 
combination lock, she could hardly have 
spoken with more confidence. 

“ iVnybody might slip in the front door 
and pick the lock, though,” slyly sug- 
gested Mr. Mason, who dearly loved to 
tease Miss Smith. 

“ The front door’s locked and bolted, 
directly it’s sundown,” answered Miss 
Smith, scornfully ; “ and as the settin’- 
room winders all button down to the top, 
I guess there’s no great danger.” 

“ But our room opens directly into the 


The Adventures of Tad . 233 

sitting-room, and, you know, we always 
keep our windows pushed up,” persisted 
Mr. Mason, winking at his wife. 

“ Don’t mind him, Miss Smith,” said 
his wife; “ he’s always trying to frighten 
somebody, if he can.” 

“ I wasn’t born in the woods, to be 
scart by owls,” answered Miss Smith, at 
which retort Mr. Mason laughed, and 
passed his preserve-dish for a second in- 
stalment. 

“ How will Mr. 6 J. H. A.’ find his way 
here,” asked Mrs. Mason, after a brief 
pause. 

“ Tad’s gone up to Potter’s, to meet 
him,” returned Miss Smith, glancing into 
the teapot, — “ Potters ” being the old- 
time country tavern where the stage 
coach stopped, and from whence it 
started. A little general conversation 


234 The Adventures of Tad. 

ensued, and then, rising from the table, 
Mr. and Mrs. Mason stepped out on the 
piazza, to enjoy the cool of evening, 
while Miss Smith called Samantha to her 
own supper. 

Half an hour passed, and the distant 
clatter of the crazy stage coach was 
heard coming round the bend in the road 
at the entrance to the village. The lamp 
was carried into the sitting-room, and 
Captain Flagg, with his wife and Polly, 
who had just arrived, in compliance with 
Miss Smith’s express invitation, were 
shown into the quaint old-time room, 
followed, a moment or two later, by the 
Masons — Miss Smith, wearing her best 
alpaca, bringing up the rear. 

There was a brief period of waiting, in 
which every one spoke in a sort of under- 
tone, and presently steps were heard on 


The Adventures of Tad. 235 

the piazza, whereat Miss Smith nervously 
hurried out, to encounter the gaze of the 
tallest and stiffest gentleman she had ever 
seen, who had just entered the door with 
Tad. 

“This is Mr. J. H. Atherton — Miss 
Smith,” said Tad, awkwardly. 

Miss Smith courtesied primly. The 
tall gentleman inclined his head about an 
inch and a half, after which ceremony he 
was ushered into the sitting-room, and 
formally presented to the assembled com- 
pany, whose presence he evidently re- 
garded with some surprise. 

“ Bein’ a lone woman,” explained Miss 
Smith, “ I thought best, for my sake and 
Tad’s here, to ask in these frien’s and 
neighbors of mine, so ’s to make sure that 
ev’rything ’ll be done straight and square.” 

Mr. Atherton did not seem particu- 


236 The Adventures of Tad . 

larly well pleased with the explanation, 
but he silently bowed, and seated himself 
in Miss Smith’s rocking chair. Then, 
mounting a pair of gold-bowed eye- 
glasses across his Roman nose, he 
glanced over the top of them, and cleared 
his throat in an impressive manner. 

“This — er — youth, whom I dimly re- 
member having seen once before,” said 
Mr. Atherton, with a dignified movement 
of his slender white hand toward Tad, who 
stood near the old secretary, “ has, while 
on the way to your house, informed me 
concerning the manner in which — a — 
my property came into his possession, 
and I presume his — er — veracity need 
not be called into question.” 

Miss Smith sniffed audibly. 

“ He’s as truthful a boy as / ever saw,” 
she said, concisely, and Captain Flagg 


The Adventures of Tad. 237 

was heard to murmur that no truthfuller 
one never chopped down a cherry-tree 
with his little hatchet. 

“ That being the case,” continued the 
speaker, who had a ponderous way of 
moving and speaking, “we will proceed 
to the business in hand.” 

Drawing a note-book from his pocket, 
Mr. Atherton opened it, and began 
reading: — 

“ Contents of satchel as follows : Item 
first, white pasteboard box, containing 
certain articles of jewelr} 7 , to wit : One 
gold star pendant, containing seven- 
teen diamonds, with large straw-colored 
stone in centre ; one pair solitaire ear- 
drops, 3J carats weight each ; one dia- 
mond ring ; one heavy gold bracelet. 
Value of the whole — six thousand five 
hundred and fifty dollars. These valu- 


238 The Adventures of Tad, 


ables,” he observed, pausing a moment 
to note the effect of his announcement, 
“ are family jewels, now belonging to 
myself as sole surviving heir of the late 
Atherton family.” 

“ Item second,” he continued, referring 
again to the note-book, “ family papers, 
as follows : Power of attorney from my 
deceased brother, S. K. Atherton ; deed 
of Atherton homestead; will of late 
Gen. Cleveland Atherton — ” 

“ That’s enough,” curtly interrupted 
Miss Smith; “you have the key to the 
satchel with you, I s’pose.” 

“ I have, madam,” was the reply. 

“ Then,” returned Miss Smith, moving 
toward the secretary drawer, and proceed- 
ing to insert the key, “ if'the things in the 
satche) correspon’s to them you’ve men- 
tioned, why — ” 


The Adventures of Tad. 239 

Here Miss Smith stopped abruptly. 
The drawer was unlocked. With a face 
paler than ashes, she jerked it open! — it 
was empty! 

“ Robbers ! ” she gasped, dropping 
into the nearest chair. “ Thieves!” she 
screamed hysterically, as they all rose 
to their feet and came crowding about 
her. “ Burglars ! ” she shrieked, in a' 
still higher key, “ and it’s all been done 
since six o’clock — that satchel was in 
there then, for I see it with my own eyes ! 
And now — it’s gone ! — gone ! ” And 
Miss Smith’s voice failed her; so she be- 
gan to sob. 

At this startling piece of news, Mr. 
Atherton looked incredulous, Captain 
Flagg and his wife astounded, Polly 
amazed, Tad bewildered, Mrs. Mason 
surprised, and Mr. Mason overwhelmed! 


240 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ By Jove ! ” muttered the latter gen- 
tleman, as a sudden thought seemed to 
strike him; and, leaving the little group 
staring dumbly at each other, he bolted 
‘into his own room. 

“ I don’t wish to increase the general 
unpleasantness,” he observed, poking his 
head through the door with a ghastly 
smile, “ but I’m compelled to remark 
that the thief has also taken — ” 

“ Not my Roman gold bracelets, John 
dear,” interrupted his wife, clasping her 
hands in a tragic manner. — “ Don’t say 
that ! ” 

“ I grieve to be obliged to say so, my 
love,” said Mr. Mason, with affected 
pleasantry, “ and also to add that not only 
have your watch and chain been stolen 
silently away, but the biggest trunk seems 
to have been despoiled of a dress or two, 


The Adventures of Tad. 241 

as well as of the fur-lined circular, which 
you 'would insist upon bringing, in spite 
of my remonstrances, while — ” 

“ Here, Tad! Tad, come back here! 
where are you going ! ” interrupted Miss 
Smith, as, at the words “ fur-lined circu- 
lar,” Tad, seizing his cap from the table, 
bolted from the room without a word, 
followed by Mr. Mason, who muttered 
something about hunting up the sheriff, 
while his wife, with a hysteric sob, sought 
her own apartment for the purpose of 
seeing whether she had sustained any 
further loss. 

Mr. Atherton rose to his feet with sus- 
picion in his eye, and the little satchel 
key, which he had previously drawn from 
his pocket, in his hand. 

“ I — I — do not like the appearance 
of all this,” he said, in a tone of severe 


242 The Adventures of Tad \ 

displeasure. “ That boy’s behavior, from 
my first encounter with him, at the 
station in Philadelphia, to this last — 
er — hasty exit, has, to say the least, 
hardly been above suspicion; and I must 
say — ” 

“ What , sir ! ” wrathful ly exclaimed 
Miss Smith, not heeding pacific Mrs. 
Flagg’s gentle twitch at her dress- 
skirt, “ so you dare to insinuate that 
my — that Tad, who’s be’n under my 
own eye ever sence he come to Bix- 
port, — an’ a honester, stiddier boy never 
lived, — would — ” 

“ Without meanin’ to come into no col- 
lision,” gently but firmly interposed 
Captain Flagg, in persuasive tones, “ an’ 
seein’ we’re all neighbors an’ frien’s, sup- 
posin’ we lay to an’ anchor for a spell, an’ 
see what comes of it. In my way of 


243 


The Adventures of Tad . 

thinking 9 ’ continued the Captain, beaming 
mildly upon Mr. Atherton, who, appar- 
ently a little ashamed of his haste, had 
subsided again into his chair, “ that there 
boy is all Miss Smith says, an 9 more too, 
an 9 it’s my belief that what’s sot him off 
all so sudden is some kind of a clew that 
he’s in a hurry to overhaul. — What do 
yo2i think, Polly ? 99 

Polly said that she knew it was some- 
thing of the sort, while Mrs. Flagg 
murmured words to the same effect. So, 
as there really was nothing to do but 
await events, Miss Smith swallowed what 
she afterward mentioned as her “ right- 
eous indignation," and took up her 
knitting ; Mr. Atherton controlled his 
impatience as best he could, and, drawing 
a paper from his pocket, became seem- 
ingly absorbed in its contents, though 


244 The Adventures of Tad . 

Tad was perpetually scampering up and 
down its columns ; while the Flaggs 
conversed with each other and with Miss 
Smith, in a confidential undertone, re- 
garding the strange events of the day. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


Meanwhile, Tad, possessed by one 
dominant thought, which had flashed 
across his mind at Mr. Mason’s mention 
of the loss of his wife’s fur-lined circular, 
was speeding through the half darkness 
up the street in the direction of Potter’s. 

For, an hour or so before, while walk- 
ing the hotel piazza, pending the arrival 
of the stage, Tad’s eyes, which, generally 
speaking, were everywhere, happened to 
glance through one of the long windows 
into the dingy apartment dignified by the 
name of “ Ladies’ Parlor,” where, rather 
to his surprise, he noticed a richly attired 
lady, with a veil before her face, sitting 
on the worn hair-cloth sofa. Guests were 


245 


246 The Adventures of Tad . 

not common at Potter’s — particularly 
well dressed ladies — and Tad, secretly 
marvelling, gave this one more particular 
attention as he walked to and fro. One 
thing struck him as being rather peculiar, 
which was that, despite the warmth of the 
July evening, the stranger wore over her 
other apparel a long silk circular, very 
similar to the one which had played so 
important a part in his own exodus from 
the city, even to the fur lining, of which 
he caught a tiny glimpse. 

Joe Whitney had joined him in his 
walk, and, noticing the direction of his 
gaze, had whispered confidentially: — 

“ Say, that’s my passenger — Potter’s 
goin’ to give me a quarter to drive her 
over to Middleboro, to catch the train, 
’cause he can’t spare the hostler. She’s 
in a big hurry,” added Joe, with a gleeful 


The Adventures of Tad . 247 

chuckle, “ so they’re harnessing up 
Brown Pete, and there isn’t but one better 
trotter in the stable — that’s Potter’s sor- 
rel mare, and she’s a regular flier.” 
For Joe, like most boys, was very fond 
of a fast horse, and, being an excellent 
driver for his years, obtained gratuitous 
rides and occasional quarters by taking 
occasional passengers to their different 
destinations for Mr. Potter. 

But the arrival of the stage, with Mr. 
Atherton and one other passenger, — a 
small, silent man, who only spoke in 
monosyllables, whose features Tad could 
not distinguish in the gathering dark- 
ness, — drove Joe’s communication and 
the mysterious occupant of the parlor, 
alike, from his mind, till after the dis- 
covery of the robbery of Mrs. Mason’s 
room, when, as I have said, her husband’s 


248 The Adventures of Tad . 

sudden reference to the loss of the cloak 
caused a new idea to occur to him, which 
brought the incident just narrated freshly 
to mind, and sent him rushing from the 
room. Not only this, but, growing into 
an almost certainty as he hurried along, 
it added such speed to his flying feet that, 
on his arrival at Potter’s, in a flushed and 
heated condition, Tad stumbled almost 
head-first against the small, silent man 
who had been Mr. Atherton’s fellow- 
passenger, as he was walking the piazza 
with a cigar in his mouth. Hastily excus- 
ing himself, Tad burst into the office, 
where Mr. Potter, who weighed nearly 
three hundred, was sitting in his shirt- 
sleeves, reading the New England 
Farmer. 

“Say, Mr. Potter!” gasped Tad, breath- 
lessly, “ how long has Joe been gone 


The Adventures of Tad. 249 

with that person — passenger — in the 
long black cloak ? ” 

“ Eh ? ” responded Mr. Potter, looking 
up from his paper, and speaking with 
aggravating deliberation, “ how long ? 
Lemme see. M’ria,” raising his voice for 
the benefit of his wife, in the other room, 
“ how long’s that young Whitney be’n 
away with that air lady passenger — the 
one in sich a tremendous hurry to git to 
Middleborrer ? ” 

Tad with feverish impatience awaited 
the answer. The small man on the 
piazza, near the open door, must have 
been of a rather inquisitive nature ; 
for, holding his cigar between his 
fingers, and his head a little to one side, 
he too seemed to listen for Mrs. Potter’s 
response. 

“ Pretty nigh half ’n hour,” called Mrs. 


250 The Adveiitui'es of Tad . 

Potter, through the half-open door. 
“ Why ? — who wants to know ? ” 

“ Me — Tad Thorne, Mrs. Potter,” ex- 
claimed Tad, in an agitated voice, “ and 
oh, Mr. Potter ! wjorft you have the sorrel 
mare put right in quick, so I can drive 
off after her, — I mean him — dressed up 
in Mrs. Mason’s cloak, and catch ’em 
before he — she — gets to Middleboro ! ” 
“ Why, what on earth is the matter 
with you ? ” demanded Mrs. Potter, with 
some asperity, as she bounced into the 
office. 

“ It’s that Forrest — his name is 
Jones — I mean Edwards,” poor Tad ex- 
claimed, incoherently, “ he’s stole Mr. 
Atherton’s hand-bag, full of di’muns and 
papers, and dressed up in Mrs. Mason’s 
clothes and cloak — ” 

“ Mr. Potter ! ” interrupted a quick and 


The Adventures of Tad . 251 

somewhat imperious voice, proceeding 
from the smoker of the piazza, who, fling- 
ing his cigar aside, suddenly appeared 
inside the door, “ have your fastest horse 
put into a light buggy, and be quick 
about it ! ” And in the voice, as well as 
its owner, Tad, with a great thrill of joy, 
recognized City Detective Blossom, who, 
it will be remembered, had caused Mr. 
Jones to restore the little alligator-skin 
satchel to Tad, in the streets of Boston, 
a long time before. 

“ Tell him the sorrel mare, Mr. 
Blossom,” cried Tad, who was wildly ex- 
cited; “ she can trot ever so much faster 
than Brown Pete, — and oh! please let 
me go too ! ” 

The detective glanced sharply at Tad, 
and nodded. “You can go,” he said, 
briefly. “ The sorrel mare, Mr. Potter, 


252 The Adventures of Tad . 

and be quick about it,” he added ; and, 
greatly bewildered, Mr. Potter bawled 
his directions to his wife, who repeated 
them from the back window to the 
hostler, in the stable yard. 

“ How was it ?” asked Mr. Blossom, in 
his curt way, as Tad followed him out on 
the piazza. And Tad succeeded in giv- 
ing a tolerably succinct account of the 
robbery, and leading circumstances which 
had made him almost positive as to the 
guilty person. 

“ Smart boy,” the detective remarked 
approvingly, as the buggy rattled round 
to the door; “jump in ! ” And, springing 
after Tad, Mr. Blossom snatched the 
reins from the hostler’s hands, chirruped 
to the sorrel mare, and they were off. 

“It’s a straight road to Middleboro — 
only one hill,” gasped Tad, whose breath 


The Adventures of Tad . 253 

was almost taken away by the rapidity 
with which the light buggy was being 
whirled along behind the nimble heels 
of the sorrel mare. As long as he lives, 
he will never forget that night drive over 
the level, dusty highway, lined on either 
side by the dense piny growth peculiar 
to the New England States. The moon 
was nearly full, and as it gradually rose 
above the tree-tops, great patches of 
alternate light and shadow were thrown 
across the road. Mr. Blossom, whose 
thin, keen face did not show the slightest 
trace of emotion, sat bolt-upright on the 
buggy-seat, with feet firmly braced, his 
short muscular arms extended straight out 
before him, as rigid as bars of steel from 
the strain of the tautened reins, which 
were wound in one turn about each of 
his small, nervous hands. 


254 The Adventures of Tad . 

Evidently Mr. Blossom not only knew 
how to drive but how to get all possible 
speed out of the sorrel mare. With her 
small ears laid back and her nose pointing 
forward, the intelligent animal seemed to 
understand that now, if ever, her best 
efforts were required, and her slim legs 
went measuring off the miles with long, 
steady strides that seemed to impercep- 
tibly grow longer and swifter as she 
warmed up to her work. 

The sorrel mare was going nearly two 
miles to Brown Pete’s one, at her present 
rate of speed. Trembling with excite- 
ment, Tad held his hat on with one 
hand, while with the other he clung to 
the rail of the buggy, as the pines 
and hemlocks which bordered the road 
seemed flying by like lightning. 

“ There they are,” briefly said Mr. 


The Adventures of Tad . 255 

Blossom, speaking for the first time since 
they had started. Far ahead in the moon- 
light rose Winslow’s hill, beyond which 
lay Middleboro, about two miles distant. 
Outlined against the pale ribbon-like road 
was a black moving object, at the sight 
of which Tad’s heart gave a great throb 
of excitement. 

Mr. Blossom took the long, slender 
whip from the socket and gently touched 
the sorrel mare’s heaving flank. 

Whew! Tad began to wish he was 
safely back on Mr. Potter’s piazza. 
Such going ! The mare was making 
such time as she had never excelled even 
at the Middleboro trotting-park. If a 
wheel should come off — 

But now, as they gained rapidly upon 
the team in advance, it was evident that 
the pursued had become aware of a 


25 6 The Adventures of Tad . 

pursuer. Up the long hill sped Brown 
Pete, but the fleet strides of the sorrel 
mare followed with increasing speed. 
Down the long incline — and now the 
distant lights of Middleboro town were 
distinctly visible. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Mr. Blossom’s lips were tightly com- 
pressed, as he glanced from the flying 
team to the distant village lights ; for, 
though the sorrel mare was doing her 
best, it was very evident that she was be- 
ginning to be “ winded”; while Brown 
Pete, driven at a less rate .of speed at the 
beginning of the journey, seemed nearly 
as fresh as ever. 

“ You’d better pull up, Edwards — Pm 
bound to have you,” called Mr. Blossom, 
in a strong, clear voice, that rose above 
the rattling wheels. 

“ First catch your hare,” shouted a 
mocking voice, as the speaker, whose 
plumed hat had dropped off, turned on 


257 


25 8 The Adventui'es of Tad . 

the seat, and looked back. He had 
snatched the reins from Joe’s hands at 
the first indications of pursuit, and was 
plying the whip unmercifully, while Joe, 
in a seeming agony of terror at discovering 
the dangerous character of his passenger, 
had dropped into the bottom of the buggy. 

But Joe was no coward, and was quick- 
witted withal. As he heard the detec- 
tive’s shouted remark and his unpleasant 
companion’s reply, he hesitated one brief 
second, and then, reaching up, seized the 
right-hand rein in both hands — pulling 
on it with all his strength. 

Of course, the inevitable result followed. 
Brown Pete swerved wildly to the right — 
the forward wheel turned under the 
buggy-bottom, and “ cramped,” which 
caused the buggy itself to turn over — with 
such surprising suddenness that Joe went 


The Adventures of Tad . 259 

flying into a small duck-puddle by the 
roadside, while Edwards — skirts, cloak, 
and all — sailed impetuously over a fence, 
and landed in a field beyond it. 

Mr. Blossom, with a joyous exclamation, 
began to pull up the sorrel mare — no 
easy task, I can assure you. 

And Tad, who, despite his excitement, 
had never taken his eyes from the one 
object of pursuit, uttered a cry; for, before 
the buggy came to a full stop, he saw 
Edwards gathering himself up and starting 
in a ridiculous run across the field. 

“ He shd’ri’t get away!” cried Tad, 
whose nerves, wrought up to the highest 
pitch, would have ventured anything to 
save the prize, so nearly within their 
grasp. Before the words had left his 
lips, Tad had slipped over the back of 
the buggy, scaled the fence like a 


260 The Adventures of Tad . 

squirrel, and was following close at 
Edwards’ heels, while Mr. Blossom’s 
nimble feet were gaining the fence itself. 
Like most boys, Tad was a good runner, 
while Edwards, encumbered by the cling- 
ing skirts, made very indifferent progress, 
even though, holding them as high as 
he could ! And in another moment Tad 
had seized the end of the long circular, 
which was streaming out behind like 
black wings. 

“ Gi’me the satchel!” panted Tad; 
and with the words the cloak-clasp parted 
— Tad fell on the back of his head, 
holding the fur-lined circular in his 
hand, while Edwards plunged forward — 
caught his foot in the front breadths of 
Mrs. Mason’s best black silk, and went 
down on his nose in a highly undignified 


manner. 


The Adventures of Tad . 261 

When Tad regained his feet, Mr. 
Blossom was rather humorously regarding 
a very shamefaced individual attired in a 
torn and mud-stained black silk dress, 
which entirely failed to conceal a pair 
of very masculine boots and trousers. 
Mr. Edwards’ wrists were adorned with 
steel handcuffs, and his features wore 
such a downcast look that Tad’s tender 
heart was touched. 

“ If he’ll only give the rest of the 
things up, hadn’t you better let him 
go, Mr. Blossom?” suggested Tad, in 
a low tone \ but the detective shook his 
head. 

“ He’s wanted in Boston, for something 
more serious than stealing,” said Mr. 
Blossom, gravely. And then he handed 
Tad the recovered satchel, together with 
Mrs. Mason’s jewelry, which he had 


262 The Adventures of Tad, 

taken from Edwards’ pocket with pro- 
fessional dexterity. 

“ If there’s any reward offered for all 
this, you’ve earned your share of it,” 
the detective remarked ; and then the 
three made their way back in compar- 
ative silence. 

Joe had fished himself from the duck- 
puddle, unharnessed Brown Pete from the 
overturned vehicle, which was not badly 
damaged, and when the singular trio 
regained him in the road, he was scraping 
himself with a stick, while the two horses, 
carefully blanketed, stood, with drooping 
heads and reeking sides, by the road- 
side. 

“Well, by gracious! this beats all the 
rides ever I took ! ” said Joe, as ten min- 
utes later, with Tad at his side, he drove 
slowly toward Bixport, while the detec- 


The Adventures of Tad . 263 

tive followed close behind, with his 
captive. 

“Me too!” returned Tad, who was 
holding the recovered satchel very tightly. 

“Won’t folks’ eyes stick out, though, 
when they come to hear all about it, to- 
morrow ! ” And Tad replied that he rather 
guessed so ; and then, opening his heart, 
he told his companion the whole story, 
from beginning to end, at which recital, 
as the stories say, Joe’s astonishment can 
better be imagined than described. 

Bixport was in a wild state of ferment 
when they arrived. The story of the 
robbery, with some marvellous embellish- 
ments, had spread like wildfire. 

A real criminal and an actual detec- 
tive in their very midst ! No one, after 
this, would ever dare to call Bixport 
“ a little, sleepy, one-horse town,” such 


264 The Adventures of Tad . 

having been the reproach once cast upou 
it by a resident of Middleboro. 

Leaving Joe explaining, to the wonder- 
ing crowd that had assembled before 
Potter’s, their joint share in the exciting 
incidents of the evening, Tad, hugging 
the satchel under one arm, while across 
the other was thrown the circular cloak, 
hurried, with joyous steps, back to Miss 
Smith’s. 

Bursting impetuously into the sitting- 
room, where sat the little company, to 
which Mr. Mason, who had gloomily 
returned from an unsuccessful search for 
a deputy sheriff, had joined himself, Tad 
tossed the long-lost satchel into the lap 
of Mr. Atherton, thereby causing him to 
drop the paper he had been perusing 
upside-down, and, with it, his dignified 
reserve to such an extent that he ex- 


The Adventures of Tad . 265 

claimed “Gracious goodness ! ” for which 
he at once apologized, as his trembling 
fingers applied the little key to the key- 
hole ; while Tad, with his politest bow, 
presented astonished Mrs. Mason with 
her recovered jewelry and the fur-lined 
circular. 

“ The dress was all mud, and striddled 
from top to bottom, or I’d brought that 
too,” he added, as Mrs. Mason, with an 
exclamation of delight, received her re- 
covered property ; while her husband 
gazed at smiling Tad in a dazed sort 
of way, and whistled softly to himself, 
as one whose feelings were too deep 
for adequate expression. 

“ Tad, you’re a — a jewel ! ” said Miss 
Smith, energetically; and very much to 
Tad’s astonishment, but to his secret 
gratification, the maiden lady imprinted 


266 The Adventures of Tad. 

a sounding kiss upon his blushing cheek, 
while Captain Flagg shook hands with 
him vigorously, with a muttered reference 
to chainin’ up a child in the w r ay he’d 
ought to go, so ’s when he’s old he won’t 
go to strayin’ off. Polly said nothing in 
words, but rejoicing sparkled in her eyes, 
and praise was apparent in her beaming 
smiles. With the list in one hand, Mr. 
Atherton was rapidly running over the 
contents of the alligator-skin satchel. 

“ Gold star pendant, solitaire drops, 
diamond ring, bracelet, and papers — um 
— yes, everything seems to be here,” he 
said, with a look of intense satisfaction, 
as, dropping the list into the mouth of the 
bag, which he carefully relocked, the 
dignified gentleman regarded the com- 
pany with something like affability. 

“ Regarding the matter of — er — re- 


The Adventures of Tad. 267 

ward,” continued Mr. Atherton, drawing 
a bulky note-case from his pocket, and 
glancing benignantly at Tad, who stood 
in awkward silence, while all present 
looked on expectantly, “ I feel pleased to 
be able to bestow it upon so — a — 
worthy a — er — youth as the one to 
whom it rightly belongs,” selecting as he 
spoke some crisp bank-notes from their 
receptacle, and placing them on the light 
stand ; “ and, ” with a gracious inclination 
of his head to Miss Smith, “ I may 
venture to prophesy that, if he heeds the 
teachings of the estimable lady whose 
acquaintance I have been fortunate 
enough to make in this unexpected 
manner, he will eventually rise to — er — 
a position of — of — it may be Presidential 
honor — who knows ? ” 

And satisfied that he had said about 


268 The Adventures of Tad . 

the correct thing, Mr. Atherton gathered 
up his belongings, and, recognizing the 
remainder of the interested party by a 
comprehensive bow, took his departure 
for the hotel, with great inward exulta- 
tion ; and as he left early on the following 
morning, he thus passes out of my story. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


The Flaggs, in a high state of pleasur- 
able excitement, — all talking very fast, — 
united in congratulating Tad so warmly 
on his good fortune that it was some 
little time before they left Miss Smith’s 
house for their own home. Then Mr. 
Mason and his wife must perforce hear 
the strange adventures of the alligator- 
skin satchel, from the very beginning, 
and receive from his lips a true and un- 
embellished account of the pursuit and 
capture of the wily Edwards, from whom 
had been so successfully recovered the 
fur-lined cloak, which had played its part 
in the story, to all of which they listened 

269 


270 The Advenhires of Tad . 

with expressions of unfeigned interest 
and wonder. 

“ It did me a good turn once,” con- 
cluded Tad, in reference to the article 
in question; “now Fve done it one.” 
And he steadfastly refused to listen to 
the gentleman’s proffer of a money re- 
ward, to Miss Smith’s secret gratification, 
till Mr. Mason, with a great show of 
affected indignation, tossed a bill on the 
table, beside the others, and told Tad to 
take it and give it to Foreign Missions 
or the soldiers’ monument fund — he 
didn’t care which, or, if he thought better 
of it, he might put it in the savings-bank. 
— As for himself, the money might lie 
there forever — he wouldn’t touch it 
again. And, summoning Mrs. Mason, 
who, in her gratitude, gave Tad a hearty 
good-night kiss* her husband went to 


The Adventuixs of Tad . 271 

his room, and banged the door behind 
him very hard, as though he were angry. 

“ Well, Tad,” said Miss Smith, putting 
on her glasses, and glancing at the pile 
of bills on the table, “ this has been one 
of the days, hasn’t it! Five hundred and 
— fifty dollars!” she exclaimed, taking 
up the bill left by Mr. Mason. “Well, 
well ! ” 

“ It’s too much, every way,” returned 
Tad, who hardly knew whether he was 
on his head or his heels. 

“ ’Tain’t too much,” snapped Miss Smith. 
“ That Atherton man, who ac’s as though 
his spine was froze stiff, orter give you 
an even thousand hisself. Look at them 
di’rnuns — sixty-five hundred dollars w’ith, 
and you riskin’ your life to capter’ ’em 
back from that bloodthirsty bu’glar ! ” 

“ I wish, then, you’d take the money, 


272 The Adventures of Tad . 

Miss Smith, and put it somewheres in the 
bank where yours is,” finally said Tad, 
who already was beginning to realize 
what the French call “the embarrassment 
of riches.” 

“ Maybe that would be best,” returned 
Miss Smith, thoughtfully; “but I must 
give you some sort of a writing to show 
for it, in case anything happens to me.” 

“ Oh, dear!” sighed Tad, “what should 
I do if anything did happen to you. 
I’d never find anybody else in the whole 
world I should like to work for as I do for 
you.” Miss Smith was strangely moved 
by this simple appeal, but she had, as she 
expressed it, “ broke down ” once that 
evening, and didn’t propose to again. 
So she made no reply, but busied herself 
in getting out writing materials; rather 
to Tad’s disappointment, for he had al- 


The Adventures of Tad. 273 

most dared to hope for some little mani- 
festation of the tenderness that he knew 
lay under Miss Smith’s crusty exterior. 

Turning the lamp up a little higher, 
Miss Smith sat down to write, and, after 
considerable mental effort, succeeded in 
drawing up the following receipt : — 

“ Bixport, June 23, 187--. 

“ This certifies that I Rhoda A Smith 
have this day Received five hundred and 
fifty dollars. To be deposited with my 
Money in Middleboro Bank. The same 
$550, dols being the property of — ” 

“ What is your whole name, child,” 
asked Miss Smith, suspending her pen 
over the paper after writing the word “of.” 

“ Thaddeus Thorne, mum,” replied Tad. 

“ What!” exclaimed Miss Smith, drop- 
ping the pen. 


274 The Adventures of Tad . 

“Thaddeus Thorne,” repeated Tad, a 
little louder. 

“ Oh, Lord ! ” said Miss Smith, and 
stared at Tad so wildly that he almost 
feared the events of the day had affected 
her brain a very little. 

“ What was your mother’s name ? ” 
Miss Smith again asked, in a curiously 
repressed tone. 

“Margarita Consuelo Smith,” Tad re- 
turned; a little hesitatingly, for it had 
a rather romantic sound, and he feared 
she might laugh at it. 

“Any relations living?” inquired Miss 
Smith, in the same constrained man- 
ner. 

Tad shook his head. 

“ I suppose I’ve got an Aunt Rhoda 
somewhere,” he said, slowly, “ but she 
was mad at mother for marrying father, 


The Adventures of Tad . 275 

and never wrote her or anything, and 
mother never said much about her — ” 
“Oh, Tad ! — Tad ! ” cried Miss Smith, 
throwing up her arms, “ God knows I 
didn’t mean to be cruel — it was my 
hateful proud-spiritedness did it, and 
then, the first thing I heard, Margie — 
my own sister! — was dead, and it was 
too late! — too late!” And drawing the 
bewildered boy’s fresh face against her 
own thin sallow features, wet with re- 
morseful tears, Miss Smith told him that 
she was the Aunt Rhoda whom he had 
never known, and that henceforth, please 
God, he should be to her as an own 
son. 

“ And now, Tad,” said his aunt, after 
the long talk that ensued, “ it’s nigh 
twelve o’clock, and time you was in bed 
long ago, after such a — ” 


276 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ Rat-tat-tat ! ” went the knocker. 

“ It never rains but it pours,” remarked 
Miss Smith, lighting a candle, “ and I 
wonder what’s coming now!” 

Stepping into the entry, she called, 
“ Who’s there, and what do you want?” 

“ It’s me — Joe Whitney! — I want to 
see Tad a minute,” piped a well known 
voice, through the keyhole. 

Miss Smith uttered an exclamation of 
disgust. 

“ Well, Pm going to bed — you can let 
him in for a few minutes, Tad, though I 
don’t see, for the life of me, how Deacon 
Whitney and his wife can reconcile it to 
their conscience to let that Joe go trapsin’ 
about at this time o’ night,” said Tad’s 
aunt, shortly. But she kissed her nephew 
very tended) 7 , despite her acid tones, and 
hurried away lest Joe’s observing eyes 


The Adventures of Tad . 277 

should see the marks of her recent 
emotion on her face. 

Tad drew back the bolt, and opened 
the door. There stood Joe, dressed in 
his Sunday clothes, with a small bundle 
slung over his shoulder, after the manner 
of the dramatic sailor about leaving home 
for a sea-voyage. 

“ Come out here, Tad,” whispered Joe; 
and, too much astonished to speak, Tad 
followed his friend out on the moonlit 
piazza. 

“ I come to say good-by — I’m going 
to run away,” said Joe, in a voice 
intended to be very firm and brave, but 
which had a suspicious shake in it, as 
he involuntarily glanced back at the old 
farm-house a little further down the street, 
bathed in the soft splendor of the moon- 
beams. 


278 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ Going to run away!” repeated Tad, 
in tones of the utmost astonishment. 
“What for?” 

“Well,” was the reluctant answer, 

» 

“ there’s a good many reasons. I’m tired 
of bein’ thrashed so much, for one thing,” 
said Joe, squirming round rather un- 
easily, as though he found sitting on the 
edge of the piazza uncomfortable, “ and 
I’m tired of farm-work, too. Besides,” 
he added, boldly, “ I want to be a detec- 
tive — Mr. Blossom said he’d bet I’d 
make a real smart one.” 

“ Then, bine-bye, you'll be goin’ off,” 
continued Joe, mournfully, as Tad stared 
at his friend, in consternation too deep for 
words, “ and you’re the only fellow I 
ever cared anything for, anyway.” 

“ No, indeed, I won’t ! ” eagerly ex- 
claimed Tad ; “ I’m going to stay here 


The Adventures of Tad . 279 

and grow up — Miss Smith’s my own 
Aunt Rhody, that I never saw, — we only 
found it out by accident.” And Tad re- 
lated all, with which our reader is familiar, 
to Joe’s open-mouthed amazement. 

A little silence fell upon them both as 
Tad finished his story. The crickets 
chirped in the grass, and there was a 
distant chorus of frog-music from the 
neighboring swamp. 

“Joe,” said Tad, gently, “what do you 
s’pose your mother would do without 
her boy ? ” 

This was touching a tender spot. Joe 
loved his mother better than anything or 
anybody in the wide world, and Joe was 
the very apple of her eye. The boy 
drew his sleeve across his face, while the 
visions of being a detective were entirely 
obscured by some troublesome tears. 


280 The Adventures of Tad . 

“ Come, old fellow,” continued Tad, 
throwing his arm about his friend’s neck, 
“you know you don’t mean it. Why, it 
would just about kill your folks to have 
you go off this way; and then what would 
/ do, if you should run away?” 

“I — guess — I — won’t — go, after — 
all,” said Joe, brokenly, and the determina- 
tion cheered him wonderfully. In five 
minutes he was chuckling over the inci- 
dents of Edwards’ capture, and the con- 
versation became general. 

“ But I tell you, Joe,” Tad remarked, 
as he rose to his feet, “ seems to me I’ve 
been getting considerable mor’n mv 
share of good things, for one day — five 
hundred and fifty dollars, and Aunt 
Rhoda into the bargain.” 

“ It hasn’t been such a bad day all 
round, when you come to think of it,” 


The Adventures of Tad . 281 

responded Joe, with his customary grin. 
“ There was Mr. Atherton got his satchel, 
Mis’ Mason her cloak and things, Cap’n 
and Mis’ Flagg has got somethin’ to talk 
about, Miss Smith got hysterics, Mr. 
Blossom got Edwards, Edwards got 
caught, and I,” said Joe, as a final sum- 
ming up, “ got a ride — ten dollars 
from Mr. Blossom for upsetting a bug- 
gy — and a jolly good lickin’ for drivin’ 
a stable-team, when I’d been told not 
to.” 

And Joe, with a lightened heart and 
a friendly nod, stole back to the shelter 
of the paternal roof, reaching his chamber 
in safety; while Tad sought his own little 
room, where, with a very full heart, he 
knelt by his bedside and thanked the 
Good Father of all mercies for the won- 
derful way in which he had directed his 


282 The Adventures of Tad . 

boyish steps. Then Tad undressed and 
went to bed, just as the tall clock down- 
stairs struck, twelve, and thus ended the 
day of so many wonderful events. 

Thus, too, my simple story is virtually 
ended — with the future of its characters 
I have nothing now to do. At the pres- 
ent time — 

Tad Thorne is an active, growing boy, 
of good principles and industrious habits, 
a capital scholar, and a source of constant 
comfort and companionship to — 

Miss Rhoda Smith, who seems to have 
grown ten years younger since the events 
of which I have been writing. She has 
formally adopted Tad, and is more proud 
of him even than is — 

Captain Flagg, who looks upon himself 
— to use his own words — as “the inster- 
ment, under Providence, which w r as the 


The Adventures of Tad . 283 

means of interducin’ Tad to his Aunt 
Rhody.” He has, at the earnest request 
of his wife and adopted daughter, aban- 
doned his perilous calling, and turned 
over the command of the coaster to 
Ephraim — now Cap’n Small. 

Polly Flagg is growing up into one of 
the nicest girls I know. That she has 
never been able to discover anj^thing 
further as to her parentage gives her 
no uneasiness — in fact, she gives it little 
thought, being a healthy, sensible young 
miss, with no romantic fancies as to “ mys- 
terious birthrights ” and the like. She is 
trying to live so that in the fulness of 
God’s time she shall meet her own angel 
mother, who so long ago was laid under 
the daisies which nod above the green 
mounds in Bixport church-yard. Mean- 
while, her love for good Mrs. Flagg and 


284 The Adventures of Tad . 

the Captain grows even stronger as the 
days go on; while they, on their part, know 
no difference between Polly and a child 
of their own flesh and blood. And that 
Polly and Tad are the best of friends goes 
without saying, while they seem to exer- 
cise a sort of joint proprietorship in 
Bounce, who grows bigger, more affec- 
tionate, knowing, and gruff-voiced every 
week, while — 

Joe Whitney is really getting to be 
more tractable and less mischievous; and 
since the Deacon discovered somehow 
that his son came very near forsaking 
the paternal roof, it is said he is not near- 
ly as severe with him, particularly after 
knowing that Joe’s intention in running 
away was not only to escape the parental 
chastisement, but that he might adopt the 
hazardous calling of — 


The Adventures of Tad . 285 

Detective Blossom, who received a 
substantial reward for his capture of — 

Jones — Edwards — Forrest, now serving 
the state for his many misdeeds, and thus 
having abundant opportunity for reflec- 
tion. Let us hope that, realizing by actual 
experience that the way of the trans- 
gressor is hard, he will, when released 
from imprisonment, turn over a new leaf, 
and lead an honest life ever afterward. 

Thus my little amateur drama of inci- 
dents in real life has drawn to a close. 
And now with the principal actors, who 
hand in hand step before the footlights, 
let me make my own bow to an imaginary 
audience for their “ kind indulgence,” and, 
stepping back, allow the curtain to fall 
upon the final act of 


THE ADVENTURES OF TAD. 














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